Nutshell: Cops hire Mickey the genius hacker into solving murder mystery involving hackers. But, Mickey gets ‘bugged’ himself after entering the big bad world of cyber crime.
A tale of a street-smart hacker who for his rare expertise becomes a cynosure of one and all only to realize later that his own software has been infected by the ones he trusted the most. A story of its own kind ‘Mickey Virus’ is a technology driven thriller comedy that deserved improved editing.
Written and directed by first- timer Saurabh Verma, the film is all about tech-savvy young internet ‘keedas’. The story is all about coding & decoding, computer games & tablets, virus & anti-virus, intruding into another’s software only to crumble it, when nothing seems going right for you.
Manish Paul (Mickey Arora), the known TV artist and host of reality shows, is debuting in the title lead with the movie. His character of a typical Delhi based hacker (one that can be commonly found hanging around Nehru Place market) ably guided by Nitesh Pandey (Professor) from whom he learns the tricks of the game.
Mickey rules the virtual world (‘Woogle’ is his ‘karmbhoomi’) and is lethal with his programming skills though his mother is more interested in him purchasing ‘kaddus’. He happens to meet a girl of his imaginings ‘Kung fu Chameli’ in real life; a gaming character (more comparable to erotic ‘Savita Bhabhi’) conceived by him.
(Elli Avaram (Kamayani/ Kung fu Chameli) is presently participating in season 7 of reality TV show Bigg Boss.)
It so happens that one day a police team headed by Manish Chaudhary (ACP Siddhant Chauhan) and Varun Badola (Inspector Devender Bhalla) stumbles across a moody and a stubborn Mickey to crack the mystery about hackers being killed in broad daylight on a busy Delhi roads.
Here begin a series of ‘ESCAP –ades’. Ably supported by tom-boy Puja Gupta ‘Chutney’ and Raghav Kakkar ‘Floppy’ he exposes the cyber trap that involves illegal banking transaction of Rs 100 crore.
Critical view:
The flick begins on a high note with fantastically directed over the building top jumping sequences; only to fall flat as the screenplay rolls. Mickey appears to be a mirrored version of Ayushman Khurana in ‘Vicky Donor’ featuring as a languid defiant typical Delhi based Punjabi guy.
The dialogues (supposed to be witty) begin appearing to be same old trashy one-liners especially when he says ‘kash meri zuban par ‘backspace’ hota’. The usual scenes begin with the guy impressing the girl and making easy foray into her bedroom just with the ease of mouse click. All trash ‘copy paste version’ to say the least!!!
It is only when the loosely directed romantic angle ends and that the plot begins, viewers come to realize there is more in store on this ‘Hard Disk.’
Manish evolves impressively in his chilled out character as picture gets into the groove. Ayushman even needs to watch out the guy for his outstanding acting prowess. And watch out Ayushman, he is good on ears too – listen to ‘Pyar China ka mal hai’ sung by him.
The second half compensates for the lack of tight storytelling in the first and ‘Shift’ (s) you in a whole new dark world of cyber crime.
Ellie looks fantabulously gorgeous especially in her ‘Savita Bhabhi’ styled (Kung fu Chameli) avatar with a yellow sari (not red, excuse me) draped on. For the reason, she is not fluent with Hindi (evident from her Bigg Boss 7 stint) her voice appears dubbed.
She has nothing more on her side but midriff gyrating sequences. And, as Chutney says in the movie ‘gori chamdi dekhi nhi ki phisal gye’, she would be an instant ‘Page Up’ among Indian males – all ‘by default’.
Manish Chaudhari as ACP is a perfect cast and so is Nishant Pandey in his role of a genius professor who plays an authority to Delhi based hackers. Amusingly someone who steals the show is Varun Badola in his heavily accented Haryanvi tone. The veteran TV actor is witty, commanding and engaging to the core.
Music by Hanif Shaikh is just average while cinematography by Anshuman Mahaley was refreshing. Editing by Archit Rastogi could have been tauter in the opening half.
Mickey Virus is based on an appealing plot about cyber crime and even with all the cyber terminologies used it’s not tedious at all. A movie that mostly comprises of youngsters and completed within a thin budget of 11 crore deserves an audience.
So, Ctrl+S (read save) your weekend for the movie and ‘REFRESH’ your monotonous internet driven lifestyle. Let 130 minutes long movie ‘hack’ your software for once!!!
**The movie gets 3 starts on the scale of 5 from Hillpost.
A mechanical engineering graduate with a post graduation in marketing and sales, Ashish has combined professional experience of more than 4 years.
Ashish is a great fan of Martin Scorsese. He loves to write poetry in his spare time.
He lives in Shimla.
