Mickey Virus Review

Mickey Virus works in fits and starts.

    Critic's Rating:  

  I’m going with two stars.

Cast: Manish Paul, Elli Avram, Varun Badola, Manish Chaudhari, Pooja Gupta

Direction: Saurabh Varma

Genre: Comedy

Duration: 2 hours 15 minutes

Short Brief Story : The cops are cracking a cyber crime case and they hire hacker Mickey to crack the plot. It opens a lethal can of worms that no ordinary anti-virus can kill.

 

Review: We aren't internet keedas here, but let's try cracking into Mickey's (Manish) world of codes, crypts and consoles. This one isn't so deadly that we can't decode, or so simple that we just download and ESC (read: escape). So, risk it and hit ENTER!

The Delhi cops, headed by ACP Siddhanth (Chaudhari) and inspector Bhalla who can't tell a 'hawker' from a 'hacker' (Varun Badola) are investigating a case on cyber crime, where hackers are getting killed in broad daylight. They suspect a hound of hackers who are running this racket, and the only way to vandalize their plot is to find a hacker who can outsmart them and decrypt their devious designs.

There comes Mickey, the fairly unambitious, lazy Delhi boy, whose brain operates faster than any high-speed internet, and his zubaan needs a 'backspace' at all times. He is popular as 'Kung-Fu Chameli' in cyberspace, and strangely, he meets his woman of web dreams, Kamayani (Elli) in reality.

The cops hire Mickey, but as he unscrambles the case he gets 'spammed' by a well-programmed series of crimes, and he desperately needs to hit Ctrl+S (read: Save) before they take the 'Mickey' out of him.

Manish is apt for the role, he makes a good debut with confidence and promise. He flavour his lines with Dilliwala twang, though in scenes his repetitive expressions need to 'refresh'. From Mickey's hack-gang, Floppy (Rahgav Kakkar) is funny, and Chutney (Puja) is impressive. Elli looks like an animated creation out of a cyber-game. Performance - never mind! Varun Badola kills the other viruses in this game with his brilliant act.

Varma allows his characters to flourish in wit and humour. The plot is intelligent; there are laughs (sample: a tee printed - 'Jab Tak Hai Trojan'), some suspense and surprises too. Though direction is not error-free, it could've been more innovative and he often tips the balance between comedy and thriller.

This virus won't crash your system. Watch it!