- Date of Release: 05 September 2025
- Genre: Comedy
- Language: Silent Film
- Watch On: Theatres Only
Ufff Yeh Siyapaa
Introduction
Sometimes I wonder if I should get an insurance for myself and my mind, given the amount of trash that I have been consuming for a while. Also, it is not everyday that I am left speechless with a film – and all for the wrong reasons. The new Hindi film Ufff Yeh Siyapaa manages to do both – it is so trashy that I found myself face-palming, and it is so silent that it left me speechless. I really had a joke going had the film been set in Chiplun (no offence to the lovely people residing here) – this would then be called a Charlie Chiplun comedy for giving a terrible homage to one of the greatest comedians of all time, Charlie Chaplin. I am not even joking when I say this that I have been discovering new spots on my face, everytime I found myself face-palming through the film. I literally found myself at war with my braincells who had ‘silently’ begun to sacrifice themselves, one by one through a narrative that essentially used silence as a virtue for mediocrity. The one positive aspect of the drama remains its title – it is an ominous warning for what lies ahead!
Story & Screenplay
Silence as a genre is always a tricky proposition simply because the writing needs to be sharp and crisp in order to hold onto your attention. This is because it almost robs one-half of the audio-visual medium, replacing dialogues with a background score that needs to captivate the viewers. This was brilliantly done in the Tamil film Pushpaka Vimana (1987) featuring an equally brilliant Kamal Haasan. But Uff Yeh Siyapaa isn’t a Pushpaka Vimana, neither are any of the actors even close to Kamal Haasan (more on the performances later). As a result, what you get is a ‘raita’ spread to the furthest corners of the world, that makes you want to go on a face-palming spree! There is literally no justification on why the attempt here is to create a ‘silent’ comedy – are the characters mute by some virus, or are they actually dumb? Or are the viewers dumb for choosing to invest in such a film? It just isn’t clear!
Divided into chapters that represent Navrasa for no reason, if the story is anything to go by – you are introduced to Kesari (Sohum Shah) who spends most of his time ogling at his hot neighbour Kamini (Nora Fatehi) while sharing a bittersweet bond with his wife Pushpa (Nushrratt Bharuccha with a prosthetic nose). In a scene, you literally see him skating in between the legs of Kamini for no reason at all, while being slapped around by Pushpa. Soon Pushpa leaves, Kesari enjoys his freedom until he discovers a dead body in his room (Nushrratt Bharuccha without the prosthetic nose). At this point, I just wish I had grabbed the opportunity to leave the theatre when I had a chance (my show did start way past its scheduled time), because the events in this film were nothing short of a travesty.
There literally is a scene involving Kesari being trapped in his household and randomly discovering a dead body resembling his wife, something that plays out like a horror comedy. And you do know that the writing remained non existential like the dialogues of the film, given how every difficult situation that you see Kesari in (as a part of the same scene), only dumbs down when we get to know that he has been hallucinating. Or atleast I think it was that – was I hallucinating too? I shall never know! At this point, I literally felt like Rohit (Hrithik Roshan) from Krrish (2006) wherein he goes – ‘Meri Shaktiyon Ka Galat Istemaal Kiya Jaa Raha Hai’. At this rate, I will be rich with retardation, and poor in my mental state.
And you also know that the writing remained non-existential like the dialogues of the film, given how the same line is repeated twice in the review. No I am kidding….. The film inexplicitly employs the Rashomon effect when it begins to unfold through the ridiculous gaze of the dead body. Invariably, the same film played out twice – as if the first time wasn’t enough, even as I felt like a convict trapped in a cell. Or was that my brain giving a martryed homage to my brain cells. I shall never know, but Charlie Chaplin and Akira Kurisawa would have taken turns to turn in their respective graves.
There are some other characters that pay tribute to Rashomon too, even as the makers oscillate between a Priyadarshan comedy and a Christopher Nolan-esque inception. So you have a Gujju Dabangg cop character with a swollen lip (Omkar Kapoor), a dead body (Ashok Pathak), a thief (Sharib Hashmi), two bags of cash and one more dead body who actually isn’t dead, a cop with a floss stuck in his mouth, a neighbour who is also a thug, a protagonist who also is a creep, an audience who is also dumb-founded. If Lucky (Tusshar Kapoor) from Golmaal (2006) would watch the film, he would utter his golden words – ‘Ae Mayao’. And the drama thinks that its resort to physical comedy is funny. I’ll tell you what is funny – my tryst with this film! It felt like an endless timeloop that was a live demo of a futuristic sci-fi film. If that is out of context, so is the film. If that makes no sense, that is the film. If you will die over and over again within those two hours, that is the film! I was left speechless!
Dialogues, Music & Direction
There are no dialogues in the film but where is that cringe punch-line when you need one? The music and BGM by AR Rahman had to be the backbone of the film, but astonishingly, the BGM pays a woeful tribute to the silent mediocrity of the film. It is so poor and so horrible that there is no saving grace here – there is just a silent churn in a grave somewhere in the world. Will the real Charlie Chaplin please await his turn? The cinematography is poor, wherein the frames are neither funny nor emotionally driven, but still one of the biggest jokes (of filmmaking) that lands in the film. The editing is Jeeru to Cinematography’s Kay, both key contributing factors to this Siyapaa being Chholey of the 21st century – given how the editing is absurdly choppy too. Director Ashok G is neither Nolan nor Priyadarshan while completely missing the mark with the direction. While I still give him brownie points for ambition, I felt like eating that same ‘brownie’ while watching the film that has literally no redeeming quality. It is literally headache inducing with ‘poor’ being the holy thread of connectivity between various departments. At a point, it felt like a Squid Game of all departments – all competing on which would be the most poor. And that literally meant that the direction was woeful!
Performances
The performances are simply atrocious wherein most performances are unbearably bad. The only one actor who really stands out is Omkar Kapoor as Hasmukh who brings some laughs with his tryst with physical comedy. Ashok Pathak is literally wasted here! Sharib Hashmi is generally a good actor, but here he is found wanting as Gungra. Nora Fatehi as Kamini looks gorgeous but clearly, physical comedy is not here forte. Nushrratt Bharuccha in both her roles tries and tries and tries, but my facial expressions failed to respond to the humour that she brought to the table. And in that regard, she misses the mark twice in this film. Sohum Shah is a good actor too but his character Kesari is a cringefest in itself. He neither is able to tap into the humour quotient of his character, and neither does he score with his physical comedy. And these performances make you realise the greatness that folks like Charlie Chaplin, Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel brought to the table. Physical comedy is the most hard, and not everyone’s cup of tea!
Conclusion
Ufff Yeh Siyapaa is a nonsensical physical comedy featuring silence as a medium of mediocrity that left me speechless for all the wrong reasons. Well, atleast the film remains true to its title! And that is a win for me! Available in a theatre near you.