Wrong No. is one of the two most anticipated Pakistani films which eventually released this past Eid day. In terms of business and digits in Pakistani Rupeess Wrong No. had earned in Pakistan made it a clear winner of Eid race against Bin Roye. Wrong No, the way it was marketing gave an impression of being a Karachi only film which will have Yasir Nawaz’s comedy just like his TV dramas and sitcoms. However film it self gives a different feel on the screen. For the lovers of Lahore the film isn’t all about Karachi, Punjabi (in Lahori accent) and Lahore has a fair share in the film. And the best thing is that Lahore looks like Lahore and Karachi does look like Karachi and in both cities local cast was used i.e. in Lahore 90% of the cast is from Lahore (I am not sure about the domicile of Janita Asma). Overall Wrong No might not be as wow as “Na Maloom Afraad” but Wrong No. is not that wrong after all.
*Spoiler alert* Wrong No. is story of Sallu (Danish Taimoor) who wants to make his name as an acting superstar. Because of his dreams, Sallu has to deal with rage of his father Hajji Abba (Javed Sheikh) who wants his son to either join the family business and be a butcher or get into some sarkaari nokri (government job). The girl next door in the story is Laila (Sohai Ali Abro), who has feelings for Sallu but Sallu (as per 95% of south Asian films) is not interested in her and wants to keep his focus on his dreams. The story of Sallu is established in Karachi there is another trail in Lahore featuring Haya (Janita Asma) who flies to Karachi to receive Shehryar (Danish Taimoor – Yes double role) who arrives Pakistan from Sydney to look after his grandfather’s business – the company Haya works at. Then the story gets a bit twisted and the Wrong No comes in when three losers like “bad guys” and the lollywoodish villain (ugly man) come into the story to play their part. *Spoiler alert*
The chemistry between Danish and Sohai seemed to be bit shallow in first half of the movie where one gets the impression that only Sohai is trying to pull the stuff up where Danish is struggling way too much. Talking about Danish, he is good with his angry young man image and look but he is totally terrible when it comes to filing a song especially his dance in one song is so awful that one can not ignore it and struggle to focus on the screen presence of Tooba Siddiqui – Even guest appearance of Tooba was totally unnecessary, her appearance was perhaps just to add more masala and glamour to the film flaunt some flesh (please excuse my bluntness) it hardly added any depth to the story line.
However, there was some spark in the chemistry of Haya and Shehryar (Janita and Danish), Janita looked cute and perhaps that is was the demand of her a good looking yet dumb and confused girl. It was quite lame, when it comes to Janita, that whole family of Haya talks in Punjabi at home but its only Haya who speaks Urdu only (this reminds me many Punjabi stage dramas from 1990s and early 2000s where whole drams in staged in Punjabi but one pretty girl or two in it have to speak Urdu only). In the story of Lahore if there is anything more prominent than Lahore Metro (for some reason it has quite a screen presence and appears in almost every scene of Lahore) is none other than the macbook using selfie clicking cool grand father of Haya, played by veteran TV actor Asim Bokhari.
In the story of Karachi, those three losers like comedians/bad guys were pretty lame Nadeem Jafri for a change acted (cant say acted well because its quite effortful of him to act at least), Danish Nawaz was in the film because he is “brother” after all otherwise there was nothing new in his acting. Shera (Shafqat Cheema) was same as most of the vilians in Pakistani cinema and Bollywood comedy flicks. Cheema is a brilliant actor but he is always used in such roles which he has done gazilian times in past too, tough he has some really good stuff on his credit too, there was nothing new in his role too but I have to say the pool table scene was interesting.
Javed Shaikh was flawless and effortless with his acting, his fight scene in climax went a little too cheezy but overall he did a fabulous job. The surprising moment of the film was cameo of Nida Mumtaz (she was playing roe of Sohai’s mother) who made screen appearance after almost two decads she was last seen hosting “Dalda ka Dastarkhwan” back in mid 1990s. The other cast members who were prominent either with their acting or with their roles were the ever crying and begging for mercy mother of Sallu, younger brother of Sallu, and wife of elder brother of sallu. However, the showstealer was the kid who was in the limelight for five minutes only but that boy cracked some real stuff in it, his acting made that circumseasion scene way more hilarious and interesting with solid punch lines. Right after that scene there was Jashan (celebration) where the item number “Selfiyaan” was inserted that killed the whole mood and felt way too lame to have such jashan featuring Sohai doing an item song like that (may be its not me its my STROG reservations with all the item songs is talking).
Sohai Ali Abro was quite impressive with her acting and dancing skills. Tough her role was quite limited in terms of her screen appearance time but that girl really put some effort in her work and showed that she is quite serious about her work. Tough she had proved that “this girl can act well” with her first ever TV drama “Saat Pardon Main” but with this film she has proven that the “girl can do films as well”. Apart from her acting her dancing skills are quite striking and she is famouse for that even before the promos of her item song came out. However I like the song “Kundi” more than the item song “Selfiyaan” as I felt item song was there just for the sake of it, but Kundi gives the nostalgia and feel of good old days of Pakistani songs and films, this might have been the modern version of Anjuman and Sultan Rahi, where Anjuman is dancing and Sultan Rahi is trying to avoid her and busy in being an angry young man just for the sake of it. However, in this case no crops or fields of Punjab were harmed with the dance and even if it was done in fields I am sure feather weight Sohai would have not caused any harm there too.
Final verdict is that film is not a bad watch, one can spend time and money on it and it is not boring if you try not to draw comparison of the film with other films. Yes there were bloopers in the film, yes there were flaws, the element of hilariousness does fall after a great start in first thirty minutes, story and acting of few actors could have been better. But, as I always say about Pakistani cinema that We can digest blunders of Hollywood and monotonous stuff of Bollywood but we are not ready to support Pakistani cinema because we assume that it is “Tacky” this mindset is wrong we should support our cinema, our films because at the end of the day it is our own cinema produced by our own people and there is nothing better than entertainment created in-house. My take on this film on the scale of 10 is 7 where one point is for the film being a Pakistani film.
Leave a Reply