{"id":133019,"date":"2013-05-13T15:29:10","date_gmt":"2013-05-13T09:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=133019"},"modified":"2013-05-13T15:29:10","modified_gmt":"2013-05-13T09:59:10","slug":"film-review-go-goa-gone-works-as-a-result-of-its-charming-lunacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/film-review-go-goa-gone-works-as-a-result-of-its-charming-lunacy\/","title":{"rendered":"[Film Review] Go Goa Gone works as a result of its charming lunacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A
A still from Go Goa Gone<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nThe moment you find out that the name of one of the protagonists (Khemu) in Go Goa Gone <\/i>is Hardik, you count the minutes to the inevitable joke. It comes about 30 minutes into the film \u2014 to the film\u2019s credit, as a throwaway line in the beginning of the first song. It illustrates what the film\u2019s comedy is all about: using the \u2018A\u2019 certificate and a Beavis-and-Butthead sensibility to go for the easy laughs, yet understanding that simply punning on the name Hardik isn\u2019t enough to carry a film in 2013.
\nInstead, Raj and DK\u2019s \u201cfirst Indian zombie film\u201d \u2014 conveniently forgetting the Ramsay Brothers\u2019 1971 Do Gaz Zameen Ke Neeche<\/i> and even last month\u2019s Luke Kenny-starring Rise of the Zombie <\/i>\u2014 relies on smart writing and a genre awareness that ensures it isn\u2019t another illogical blood-and-gore thriller. Go Goa Gone <\/i>is neither a Night of the Living Dead <\/i>nor a Shaun of the Dead<\/i>; neither a generic horror film nor an overt parody. It is a fairly conventional slacker comedy, a watered-down Delhi Belly <\/i>(though I suppose the urtext for the Indian slacker zombie genre is Jugal Mody\u2019s recent novel Toke<\/i>).
\nThe smart writing shows itself in the lack of obvious logical discrepancies in the film. I spent an hour before watching this film reading through some of the Vigil Idiot\u2019s recent reviews-cum-comics of other 2013 Bollywood releases, and found myself cringing afresh at the contrived plots of the films I\u2019ve had to review this year. Go Goa Gone<\/i>, at least ostensibly, keeps it within the rails. Faced with the prospect of their rave party on a Goan island turning into some sort of apocalyptic event, Hardik, Luv and Bunny actually pause to think about what they are up against, even if, as Hardik points out, it really doesn\u2019t make much difference to their chances of survival that it\u2019s zombies and not vampires.
\nMuch of the humour is derived from their constant attempts at make sense of the confusion (\u201cWe know nothing and we\u2019ve learned ghanta<\/i>\u201d is the response to Luv\u2019s attempts at Socratic reasoning), especially when they acknowledge, unlike most other horror films, that there already exists a century\u2019s worth of horror films. At one point, Luv uses a technique he says he saw in some movie \u2014 Shaun of the Dead \u2014 <\/i>and tries to blend in with the zombies. At another, Bunny breaks the fourth wall and complains that as the heroes\u2019 boring friend, he\u2019s going to be the first to die.
\nSomething tells me Saif Ali Khan took the role only because he gets to say \u201cI\u2019ll be back!\u201d He says it in the worst possible manner; what else do you expect from an Indian using a fake Russian accent to quote an Austrian-American? The hideous accent is priceless (\u201cCome and get me, mother-bitches!\u201d), especially when he drops in the odd Dilli gaali<\/em>. As the badass (fake) Russian mobster who will sherpa our heroes out of the island, he has a license to ham and be the Hollywood action hero he\u2019s always wanted to be, which he takes gleefully. But the film\u2019s most powerful scene also centres on him, as he is forced to cut loose his trusted ally Nikolai once the latter gets bitten.
\nSure, the film gets repetitive after the interval, and sure, much of the humour is trite stoner jokes (\u201cWe should form a Bharatiya Joint Party,\u201d Hardik giggles in the opening scene). Also agreed: the lack of badass villains makes it a distinctly poor cousin of Delhi Belly<\/i>. But Go Goa Gone <\/i>works as a result of its charming lunacy, and makes a great case for similar films in the days to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Go Goa Gone is neither a Night of the Living Dead nor a Shaun of the Dead; neither a generic horror film nor an overt parody<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":133130,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21],"tags":[8040,7275,8051,8340,8341,8311],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133019"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/75"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}