Madgaon Express Movie Review: Excel Entertainment set a new precedent for new-age buddy films with Dil Chahta Hai and then followed it up with Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara years later. The air of uncertainty looms large over Jee Le Zaraa but don’t worry because Madgaon Express is here. But truth be told, Kunal Kemmu’s directorial debut doesn’t quite fit into this list of modern day films about friendship because it’s so much more than that. While it definitely pays an ode to friendship, it also has drug lords and the world of crime and smuggling set against a not-so-glamorous backdrop of Goa seamlessly interwoven into the narrative, which renders the story a lot of novelty.
Madgaon Express is something that we’ve never seen before and thank god for that. In fact, it’s even tough to slot it into a certain genre. The film is whacky, loud and chaotic and unapologetically revels in its own eccentricities. The characters are all oddballs and you wouldn’t want to encounter most of them in real life. It almost feels like Kunal chose to tell a tale without adhering to any set structures of storytelling and yet there’s a method to the madness. It’s so all over the place and such an incredible hodgepodge of so many things that you can’t help but burst out into peals of laughter every now and then, and that’s Madgaon Express’ biggest win.
The film revolves around childhood friends – Ayush, Pratik (fondly known as Pinku) and Dhanush (referred to as Dodo by his buddies) – who aspired to take a boys trip to Goa since their school days. But they grow up and their lives take different directions with Ayush moving to New York and Pinku to Cape Town with his family. While they build credible careers and live their best lives, Dodo is stuck in Mumbai where he works as a pizza delivery boy.
A few years later, they reconnect on social media and soon plan on a reunion by taking a trip to Goa. Thus begins the most adventurous trip that turns their lives upside down. It also gives them the opportunity to accept one another with all their flaws. While Ayush appears to be the sanest and most level headed of the lot, Pinku is an over-protected, hypochondriac and accident prone Gujarati man who hyperventilates over anything and everything. Dodo, on the other hand, is a typical jugaadu who ends up causing more harm than good every time trouble erupts.
Thrown into this mix are some zany characters like drug dealer Mendoza, smuggler Kanchan Kombdi and Tasha, a young girl who claims to have solutions to all kinds of glitches. Ayush, Pinku and Dodo get entangled in a cat and mouse chase as they get their hands on a bag full of cocaine on their way to Madgaon on a train with Mendoza, Kanchan Kombdi and Tasha adding to their sorrows.
Kunal deserves applause for knocking it out of the park with his very first project as a director. He pens a screenplay that’s all kind of hilarious and it is packed with oodles of funny one-liners, repartees and situations. There are hardly any jokes that don’t land. It’s delightful to see physical comedy make a re-entry to mainstream Bollywood and successfully managing to tickle our funny bones. Even with a runtime of 2 hours 25 minutes, Madgaon Express keeps you hooked throughout the tumultuous and tizzy ride with the narrative almost never dropping pace.