Pop Kaun?
Introduction
Thank God It Is Friday and another busy weekend awaits us in terms of its new releases, so lets get to them one by one. First up I finished watching the new Hindi series Pop Kaun which is now streaming on Hotstar, directed by Farhad Samji. This is almost like a metaverse of Farhad and ‘Popkaun’ given that the series is reviewed by Farhad Dalal(yours truly) on the portal Popcorn Reviewss. Clearly too many Farhads and Popcorn doing the rounds! But to get to business, I was the least excited about this show right from the very beginning.
If you are familiar with Farhad Samji and his filmography then you would understand that the man has built his humour around several whatsapp forwards and memes. The humour is often flat and doesn’t exude any sort of confidence in terms of laughter, amd even remotely so. The fact that the marketing of Pop Kaun was stationed around the ‘Director of Housefull 4’ is not something to be proud of as well. Samji even in his latest outing, Bachchan Pandey had faltered and made a mess of an otherwise good film and sometimes it did make me wonder on how do producers give him repeated chances after monumental failures. And it is not as if he has gone back to the drawing board to rectify his mistakes. The brand of humour has been the same irritating one.
So when the first teaser of ‘Pop Kaun’ was out, I knew that this may well be another disappointing outing from Samji, given that he has again taken up the mantle of directing content other than writing which is again poor. The trailer also did not even remotely make me flash my teeth and I knew that things aren’t looking too bright. But still I decided to go ahead with it – or else what would society have said – the series has ‘Farhad’ and ‘Popkaun’ but still no ‘Reviewss’😁😁. After that poor joke(see it is rubbing through), here are my two cents on the new Hindi series Pop Kaun!
Story & Screenplay
Pop Kaun? follows the story of a man searching for his true father. The story is not bad, it is very very bad. If your definition of bad is say X then multiply that by 100X and you shall get Pop Kaun. It is so poor and so outdated even at the story level that it almost angered me upto a point of me getting irritated with the drama. The good part was that the screenplay standing at 6 episodes of 20 odd to 30 odd minutes each, did ensure that it got over quickly. But unfortunately for me, the night that followed was a long sleepless one with my dreams being bombarded with parts of the show. Guess I am scarred??
When the drama is this poor and sketchy, I don’t even feel that it does warrant an analysis. If it pleases you, the Samji universe begins with the introduction of the protagonist who from his school days has been flaunting the presence of his father who is a politician. After a basic round of introduction, the first conflict is introduced after he gets to know that his father of all these years is not his REAL father. And thus the search begins as my brain cells began to die slowly but surely. I was willing to sacrifice logic for fun but alas my brain cells did get sacrificed in the process.
The proceedings are pure torture and I couldn’t even smile at the silliness of the drama. I wonder what the team of Hotstar was doing? How was the script approved? Why was there no resistance from the people involved? Were they laughing their a*sses off? Was I the only one who found the series unfunny? Am I dead inside? It is really beyond me that this pile of dogsh*t is still being approved in 2023 when there must be so many filmmakers and writers who are still waiting for that one opportunity to prove themselves. I promise I did go into the series with an open mind and with an intention of being open to liking it. But if you keep serving the outdated and poor piles of sh*t over and over again, then it is a huge insult to my intelligence.
I really had to stick my head out to search for positives here in a drama which was more unfunny than ‘funny’ was in ‘unfunny’. Arghhh…I am infected now! But to be fair, the Tusharr Kapoor sequence atleast did make me chuckle….once! The twists and turns are ridiculous and outrageous but somewhere a good message is buried beneath the piles of bad writing. But the drama will test your patience upto a point of it being irritating. The events leading up to the final act are as flat as a pancake and there is a hint thrown in for season 2. And that is only to ensure that if you come out alive then this was perhaps the best phase for you! Next time you may not….
Dialogues, Music & Direction
The lines are unfunny and irritating so much so that I wanted to scream and shout to let off soke of my gathered steam inside me. They are cringe-worthy and I found my forehead being swollen(as if the headache wasn’t enough) from repeatedly facepalming myself. The music is decent and atleast true to the core material in hand. The BGM is alright. The cinematography made me wonder if this was an extended college project or a youtube sketch. Poor, very poor! Director Farhad Samji has yet again outdone himself. Each time you think what could be worse than this, boom….another project comes out of nowhere. His direction made me want to shower him with every one-liner of Ashneer Grover from Shark-Tank(Bhai Kya kar Raha Hai…Mazzaak Hai Kya?). To be serious, he really needs to discard this brand of humour which is borrowed from whatsapp forwards and memes. Instead, start being self-aware of it and work around it perhaps? The lesser said about the direction, the better! Enough said!
Performances
The cast comprises of some of the most popular legends of the genre and yet this did seem like a wasted opportunity for each one of them. This was the last outing of Satish Kaushik and as Kartar Singh, he is atleast seen trying and it did pain me to watch him here. Thank you for the memories sir and may you rest in peace. Tusharr Kapoor in his Golmaal avatar was good but what was Chunky Panday doing here? All his roles seem an extension of Aakhri Pasta! Veterans like Johnny Lever, Rajpal Yadav, Saurabh Shukla, Zakir Hussain and Ashwini Kalsekar try their best but the writing is such that no one really is able to shine. Jamie Lever does impress in bits and pieces. Farhad Samji the actor fares much better than in direction and writing. Nupur Sanon looks pretty but her comic timing is off by a mile. Kunal Kemmu as Sahil Sadiq Sukhi Sandy(anyone finds this funny??) is decent but I wonder why did he agree to perform in such a poor script.
Conclusion
Pop Kaun has made me undergo an identity crisis wherein I am contemplating to change my own name(Farhad) and my brand’s name(‘Popcorn’ Reviewss) after watching the 6 episodes of pure torture, need I say more! Available on Hotstar.