Vibe review: Kunal Kemmu's spy comedy is chaotic, charming and occasionally too much

Vibe movie review: Kunal Kemmu's Vibe follows Hardik and Bugs as they blunder into a spy mission led by Madam H. The film draws its appeal from their chaotic friendship even as an overloaded screenplay blunts the stakes.

In Short

• Hardik and Bugs drive the film with an engaging, chaotic friendship
• Preity Zinta's Madam H adds composure against the duo's relentless disorder
• Kunal Kemmu finds humour in awkward pauses, confusion and terrible decisions

What happens when two men who have no business being anywhere near a national-security operation are suddenly handed one? In Vibe, the answer is predictable: things go spectacularly wrong. But Kunal Kemmu’s second directorial venture is not really interested in making its protagonists competent. It is interested in making their incompetence entertaining. That gives Vibe its personality.

At the centre are Hardik (Kunal Kemmu) and Bugs (Sparsh Shrivastava), two friends whose lives are considerably more ordinary than the world of espionage they stumble into. Hardik is impulsive, immature and perpetually guided by his instincts; Bugs is the relatively sensible one, although his proximity to Hardik rarely allows that quality to be of much use. What begins with romance and bad decisions eventually pulls them into a larger mission involving intelligence operative Madam H (Preity Zinta).

On paper, it sounds like a familiar buddy comedy-meets-spy thriller formula. Kemmu, however, is clearly less interested in the mechanics of espionage than in the comic possibilities of dropping two chaotic men into a world that demands precision.

And that is where Vibe is at its best. The film has an anarchic quality that recalls the loose, lived-in humour of Madgaon Express, although its canvas here is considerably bigger. Kemmu finds comedy in awkward pauses, ridiculous reactions, escalating misunderstandings and characters behaving with complete conviction while making terrible decisions. Some of the funniest moments arrive not because the jokes are particularly elaborate, but because the actors understand exactly how seriously their characters should take the absurdity around them.

Kemmu is particularly comfortable playing Hardik as a lovable nuisance. He does not try to make the character smarter or more heroic than he is, and that commitment keeps the comedy grounded. Shrivastava, meanwhile, is an effective counterpoint. Bugs’ relative restraint allows the film to retain a semblance of reality even when everything around him descends into chaos. Their friendship is ultimately more engaging than the larger espionage plot because it feels like the emotional centre of the film.

Preity Zinta gets to play a different kind of comic foil. As Madam H, she brings an authority and composure that sharply contrasts with the two men she has to deal with. There is an inherent amusement in watching a highly controlled intelligence operative attempt to extract competence from a pair that seems constitutionally incapable of delivering it. Zinta plays the straight woman to the madness without becoming merely functional.

The ensemble adds to the film’s unpredictable energy, with Sharmila Tagore, Yashpal Sharma and Dinesh Lal Yadav contributing to a world that often feels deliberately larger and stranger than the story requires. Vanshika Dhir, too, makes an impression.

The film’s biggest weakness, however, is its screenplay. Vibe has enough comic ideas for several sequences, but not all of them deserve to be in the same film. The writing repeatedly piles one gag, twist or complication over another, creating the sense of a story that is constantly trying to outdo itself. Instead of allowing a funny situation to breathe, it often escalates it into something louder. That also affects the emotional stakes.

The irony is that Vibe does not need all that much plot to work. Its strongest moments come from watching Hardik and Bugs simply exist together. Whenever the film slows down enough to let their chemistry breathe, it becomes warmer and funnier. Whenever it tries too hard to make the spy story bigger, louder or more complicated, the charm starts to thin.

Still, there is something refreshing about a film that does not insist on treating espionage with reverence. Vibe is messy, occasionally overstuffed and undeniably indulgent, but it also has a distinct comic voice. It knows that its greatest asset is not the mission, the twists or even the spectacle. It is the sheer joy of watching two hopelessly unprepared friends try to survive a world that expects them to know what they are doing.

They don’t. Thankfully, that is the joke.

Vibe releases in Indian theatres today.

- Ends