Lasyapriya Sundaram (BOMBAY TIMES; December 7, 2017)

After delivering the sleeper hit Fukrey (2013), the makers are back with its sequel, Fukrey Returns. Ask director Mrighdeep Singh Lamba what prompted the sequel and he says that the success of the first film in the franchise was the main factor. He adds, After Fukrey, characters like Hunny (Pulkit Samrat), Choocha (Varun Sharma), Bholi Punjaban (Richa Chadha) and Lali (Manjot Singh) became popular.

Clearly, people wanted to see more of them. In fact, we toyed with the idea of making a prequel as well. That’s how Fukrey Returns materialised. Producer Ritesh Sidhwani explains, “It’s a sequel in the true sense of the word because this film starts exactly one year after the first one comes to a close. The world of the film is still the same. The situations and conflicts in the narrative have become bigger. It’s a comedy that one can enjoy with the entire family. It’s not crude and neither will it make one cringe. The dialogues are spontaneous, clean, fun and replete with one-liners. The characters in Fukrey Returns don’t take themselves seriously and that’s what's unique about the film.”

Over the years, filmmakers have created their own space in comedy within the genre. While the 1980s saw Hrishikesh Mukherjee eliciting a chuckle with the world he created, with characters close to reality, filmmaker David Dhawan opted for the slapstick variety and wanted the audience to guffaw or laugh out loud in the 1990s. Ask Mrighdeep how he would define the Fukrey kind of comedy and pat comes the reply, “Ram Gopal Varma infused his own style into the genre of crime dramas, changed the grammar and made it real. Similarly, in the genre of comedies, Fukrey Returns is set in a real world. The film speaks the language of real people and the kind of problems that they would perhaps face.” Talking of the comedies being made in Bollywood, Ritesh elaborates, “I think comedies are being made on a regular basis. Earlier, there were actors who specialised in this genre. Now, all the actors in a film have to be able to pull off a comic role. Honestly, it also depends on the audience's threshold for humour.”

Apart from the characters, what worked in favour of the first film in the franchise was the distinct North Indian milieu, which struck the right chord with the audience. Mrighdeep says, “The writer (Vipul Vig) and I belong to Delhi. So, we are familiar with the flavour that we infuse the film with. It is easy to convey to the cast members as well because most of them are from the North.” Ask him how he managed to retain the North Indian nuances and yet ensure that it was palatable for one and all and he adds, “We have revised some of the dialogues, which were too ‘theth’. It’s not intentional, it comes naturally.” Ritesh explains, “The flavour is distinct and yet universal. If the guy sitting next to me is laughing at the dialogues and I am left wondering why it’s connecting with him and not with me because I don’t understand the meaning of the words, then that becomes a deterrent. When you are making a pan-India film, the emotions have to be conveyed in a lingo that everyone can understand, but at the same time, we don’t compromise on the flavour.”

Making a sequel, which entirely relies on the popularity of its characters and the success of the first film in the franchise means that the budget has to be reasonable to set the cash registers ringing. Ritesh admits that he never insists on having conversations with his directors regarding the budget of the film and says, “I have never discussed the budget with Mrighdeep. He discussed it with the executive producer. As producers, we ensure that even in the worst-case scenario, the film achieves a certain number at the box office. We work out the budget backwards. Also, one needs to make sure that even if nobody ends up making money, no one should lose money either. You cannot be a part of films only to make money; you have to be driven by passion. With Fukrey Returns, we have upped the scale.”