Welcome 2 Karachi Movie Review: A Poor Cousin To ‘Dumb And Dumber’

The Dumb And Dumber films have been a real treat for fans of comedy and it was but natural that an enterprising Bollywood filmmaker would attempt to try out the formula over here…and the result is Ashish R Mohan's Welcome 2 Karachi. However, what it ends up being is a poor cousin of the hit film series starring Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels.

When good-for-nothing Gujarati lad Kedar (Jackky Bhagnani) decides to go to the United States, his equally incompetent friend and a former Navy officer named Shammi Thakur (Arshad Warsi) agrees to take him across the seas on his vessel. 

Will Kedar and Shammi manage to come back in one piece?

Arshad Warsi is a veteran at the art of the well-timed joke, but here, even he seems to be struggling as he attempts to make you laugh. Granted that some of the gags do evoke chuckles, but there is nothing here to make you laugh out aloud. Jackky Bhagnani as Kedar puts in an honest effort and the actor does manage to hold his own when teamed up with Warsi. Lauren Gottlieb as the feisty ISI agent seems to have been cast only for her pretty face and the rest of the cast is average enough.

As for the other aspects of the film, Welcome 2 Karachi does have a promising start and one is forgiven for expecting a laughter ride. Like mentioned earlier, some of the gags are funny enough, but the humour could have been definitely better. The director also seems to be hell-bent on ignoring logic for the sake of generating humour (Warsi's character, despite being a former Navy officer, seems to have no idea who Barack Obama is and mistakes him for Morgan Freeman!)

Some of the jokes fall flat and at times, when the director tries to create humour from situations like bomb blasts and prisoner torture, it comes across as downright asinine. If that was not all, the second half goes on stretching forever and one ends up wishing for a quick end. The music is not worth writing home about and the only thing that might be tolerable about the movie is the lukewarm comedy generated by Warsi and Bhagnani.