Happy Patel Movie Review: Vir Das’ Spy Comedy Is Bold, Absurd — and Inconsistently Funny

Cast: Vir Das, Mithila Palkar, Mona Singh, Sharib Hashmi
Directors: Vir Das, Kavi Shastri
Rating: ★★½
Runtime: 119 minutes

Bold comedy is a risky business in Bollywood, and genuinely experimental humour is even rarer. While Hollywood has long embraced unapologetically absurd films like The Dictator, The Interview, or You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, Indian cinema has only occasionally dipped its toes into adult, irreverent comedy — Delhi Belly being the most notable example.

With Happy Patel: Khatarnak Jasoos, the makers of Delhi Belly attempt another genre-bending comedy. The result is a film that is audacious, chaotic, occasionally funny — but stretched thin over its runtime.

What Is Happy Patel About?

The film follows Happy Patel (Vir Das), a bumbling British man raised by two spy fathers, who is suddenly recruited by MI7 for a covert mission in India. Trained abroad but utterly ill-equipped, Happy lands in Goa to rescue a kidnapped scientist and crosses paths with Rupa (Mithila Palkar), a dancer he instantly falls for.

Standing in his way is Mama (Mona Singh), a flamboyant Goan crime lord with a personal vendetta against Happy. What unfolds is a madcap spy parody that refuses to take itself seriously for even a moment.

A Film That Sounds Funnier on Paper

On paper, Happy Patel feels like a riot waiting to happen. Every character is deliberately exaggerated, every situation heightened for comic effect. But the execution often resembles that one friend who keeps cracking jokes without realising half of them aren’t landing.

Much of the humour relies on Happy’s mangled Hindi — dost becoming dast, paas turning into puss — along with Bollywood spoofing, sexual innuendos, and exaggerated stereotypes. While these gags occasionally earn chuckles, they are repeated so often that they lose impact.

The film opens on a promisingly quirky note, helped by an early cameo from Aamir Khan. Soon after, however, the narrative begins to meander. What might have worked as a sharp 20-minute sketch feels stretched across nearly two hours.

First Half Drags, Second Half Recovers Slightly

The first half is largely devoted to world-building, but it demands patience. The humour frequently hovers at the level of an extended internet sketch, with jokes that might amuse college audiences more than others. There’s even a climactic MasterChef spoof complete with a strategically placed expletive — a gag that sums up the film’s reliance on shock value.

The second half shows improvement. The film becomes more self-aware, leaning into meta-humour and embracing its absurdity. Cameos by Imran Khan and chef Sanjeev Kapoor briefly energise the proceedings, and the screenplay finally seems more comfortable with its own madness — though the recovery comes too late to fully redeem the experience.

Performances: Some Bright Spots

Vir Das fits naturally into the chaos and commits fully to the role. His deadpan expressions and physical comedy work, even when the material doesn’t. Sharib Hashmi stands out with his comic timing, spoofing Aamir Khan’s Laal Singh Chaddha look to good effect.

Mona Singh, as Mama, is easily the film’s strongest performer. Unrecognisable and gleefully unhinged, she brings energy and menace to a character that deserved even more screen time. Mithila Palkar adds warmth and charm, though her role remains underwritten.

The film is peppered with celebrity cameos — some clever, some indulgent — but they ultimately serve as momentary distractions rather than meaningful boosts.

Direction and Writing

Directed by Vir Das and Kavi Shastri, Happy Patel is undeniably fearless. It juggles spy parody, romantic comedy, gangster drama, musical spoof and social satire — sometimes all within a single sequence. While this “extra” approach will appeal to fans of unfiltered absurdism, it also leads to tonal inconsistency.

The script, co-written by Das and Amogh Ranadive, wants to say something about fairness obsession, identity, and Bollywood’s own clichés, but these ideas are never fully explored. Instead, the film relies heavily on puns, mispronunciations, and shock humour to keep things moving.

Final Verdict

Happy Patel is not a conventional Bollywood comedy, nor does it try to be. Its greatest strength lies in its sheer audacity — the willingness to be silly, self-aware, and unapologetically weird. Unfortunately, that boldness isn’t matched by consistent writing or sustained laughs.

A handful of performances, meta jokes, and cameos inject fleeting energy, but they cannot compensate for humour that feels thinly stretched. What could have been a sharp, disruptive comedy instead settles for being a mildly amusing curiosity — one that raises a chuckle now and then, but rarely the kind that lingers after the credits roll.