Whoa! Sunny paaji, The Hero (Remember The Love Story of a Spy ) is back.
He has come a long way from the days he used to sport sunglasses to appear incognito. In Right Yaaa Wrong , Sunny paaji has worked extra hard and makes an entry with… hold your breath and wait for it… buck-teeth. Master of disguises, indeed.
Right Yaaa Wrong begins with promise. A Johnny Gaddaar type of intro. Rainy night, someone changes number plates on a car and breaks into a house. Sunny paaji in a wheelchair is shot point blank and we are left with a shot of his ‘ dhai kilo ka haath ' hanging lifeless.
Writer-director Neeraj Pathak then takes us back six months before the incident and we see Sunny paaji doing what he's best at. Shooting bad guys and walking away in slow-motion. Never mind that the building ablaze is covered with hay all around (probably fire-proof hay) so that no stunt men or Sunny is injured during filming. One of these slow-mo walks cost him dearly as a gangster he left undead, pumps his body with bullets and leaves him to a wheelchair for life.
It's refreshing to see Sunny play a role that requires him to sit in a wheelchair for almost three-fourths of the film. Yet, he hams it up quite a bit despite the restraining condition — falling off the wheelchair, breaking down and getting increasingly frustrated with his life, contemplating suicide etc. Any other actor may have actually made us feel something for the character. But this is Sunny who asks: “What are my chances?” and waits for the doc to say “One in a million” before he can assure us: “I am one in the million”.
Also laughable is the fact that his wife (Eeshaa Koppikar) meanwhile is having an affair with a guy with an over-size chest. But for these casting mistakes, the director gets most things right. Like, giving Irrfan a solid role opposite Deol and saving up Konkana for the later part of the film so that there's something to look forward to.
Minus the Deol factor, Right Yaaa Wrong is quite a decent thriller. Come on, we know that no matter what, two people will never fail a lie-detection test. Sunny paaji and Captain Vijayakanth. There are scenes where there's a huge sensibility disconnect between the writing and the direction as the filmmaker resorts to stereotypes. The wife cheating on her husband gives out evil smiles (without a trace of guilt) and has long baths in a tub filled with rose petals along with her buddy — Sunny paaji's cousin who calls him Bro!
To his credit, Neeraj does not give you too much time to second guess the proceedings because either you are seriously hooked to the twists or are busy laughing at Deol's stint at the wheelchair and his attempt at histrionics.
But despite shades of Double Indemnity and Primal Fear , Right Yaaa Wrong has a fairly engrossing and original story whose potential is only squandered by casting, direction, miscalculations and lack of depth.
Sadly, that's two in a row for Neeraj who wrote a fantastic Apne and surrendered it to the likes of Anil Sharma and Sunny Deol to massacre it. Right Yaaa Wrong could've been the Johnny Gaddaar of the year (a tight, riveting thriller with real flawed people) had Neeraj only made an attempt to rise beyond stereotypes and tried to give all characters a mixed shade of good and evil and made them human — integral and absolutely essential for a film with this title/premise.
But watch it for a laugh anyway. You will be surprised.
