Crew review: Tabu, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Kriti Sanon’s uneven heist dramedy leaves you wanting

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Crew uses all its inventiveness in assembling its stellar, motley cast. Seeing Tabu, Kareena Kapoor Khan, and Kriti Sanon shouldering a film together is enough to pique any Hindi cinephile’s curiosity. But does the heist dramedy successfully exploit all the incredible potential that it has assembled on board?

Rajesh A Krishan’s second directorial feature, Crew is a marked departure from his delightful 2020 debut Lootcase. Featuring a hugely enjoyable Kunal Kemmu and Vijay Raaz in memorable roles, it was witty, original, unassuming, languorously paced, and a whole lot of fun. However, Crew is the opposite. Flashy and flamboyant, it goes at jet speed with a hair-brained, low-stakes plot that hovers dangerously close to the ridiculous in the second half.

Instead of exploring its three central women’s distinct, utterly diverse acting range, Crew thickly paints them with the same shade of foundation, evening out their singular quirks, styles, and personalities. So strong and lamentable is the impact of this forced homogenising that after a point, performers as inherently, instinctively different as Tabu, Kapoor Khan, and Sanon look and feel just the same.

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They play flight attendants of a commercial airline carrier called Kohinoor that hasn’t paid them salaries for the last six months. Geeta (Tabu), a pill-popping worrier who was once a small-town beauty queen, has been around for 20 years and is waiting for her PF. Jasmine (Kapoor Khan) is a mid-level go-getter who lives with her doting grandfather (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) and is too much of a star to live a middle-class life. Divya (Sanon), meanwhile, is a trained pilot who couldn’t land a flying job and hence, was forced to take up a slightly adjacent profile.

Amid mounting bills and rumors of Kohinoor’s bankruptcy, they stumble upon a colleague smuggling gold to a Middle-Eastern country. Desperate and frustrated, they decide to join in. What starts as a fun, coherent caper soon dissolves into a canvas for jarringly pointed brand integration. It’s a relentless barrage. There’s Forest Essentials, Ajio, Wow! Momos, Boat, Louis Vuitton, and more, all within 125 minutes. Before you know it, you’re playing a game called Spot Me. However, it’s impossible to miss any of them because the product placements are so in your face that they relegate the film to the background.

Kohinoor is a spoof of the debacle that was Kingfisher Airlines. Its garish owner is imaginatively named Vijay Walia (a wasted Saswata Chatterjee) who flees the country overnight throwing thousands of its employees in the lurch. There’s a minor difference though. Crew lives out what must have been the biggest fantasy of all former Kingfisher employees. Don’t ask how (not now or even after you’ve watched the film), but our leading ladies manage to take Walia to task.

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No matter what the promotions may have you believe, Crew is not a film on female friendships. If it was on paper, then that surely doesn’t translate on screen. Instead, we see three women, thrown together by circumstance, deciding to pick their own cards instead of waiting to be handed down a favorable deck. Geeta, Jasmine, and Divya are career-driven. They drink, smoke, and swear. They chart their own path, no matter how turbulent, and refuse to revere men as lodestars.

Geeta has a loving husband (a solid Kapil Sharma) and Divya a dashing love interest (a delectable Diljit Dosanjh). But Crew makes the refreshing choice not to straddle Jasmine with any man. Tabu, Kapoor Khan, and Sanon each add tremendous star power and are immensely watchable throughout. However, it takes a lot more for a film to truly take off.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow