Crew review: Tabu, Kareena Kapoor Khan & Kriti Sanon rage against the system in breezy lightweight dramedy

Crew review: Despite top-notch performers Tabu, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Kriti Sanon headlining the film, the red carpet seems stuck under the feet of underwhelming gags and a lightweight script, unable to unroll itself under the burden of expectation.

“Na jaane kab beauty queen se bai ban gayi,” Geeta, the senior-most of the three protagonists who headline Crew, says in a voiceover that inducts us into the lives of one of the film’s main characters. Tellingly, pretty much all the women here rue their middle-classness; some resent the fact that their academic prowess never translated to anything meaningful, while others bemoan the decline of their sultry self-image. These are women who, though in seemingly glamorous jobs, neatly ironed outfits and sporty body types, feel undermined and unrewarded. Life, much like this film, could have been so much more.

Crew is as stylish and calculably sleazy as it also feels underwritten and hastened. There are top-notch performers on offer, a delectable casting coup in the bag and yet the red carpet seems stuck under the feet of underwhelming gags, a lightweight script, unable to unroll itself under the burden of expectation. There is, however, the sight of Tabu and Kareena Kapoor Khan in one frame. Good enough reason to watch and devour just about anything Crew can muster.

Tabu plays Geeta, the wife of a supportive but jobless husband, who is waiting on her PF so she can elope to a life in Goa. Kriti Sanon plays Divya, who has convinced her economically challenged family that she is a pilot, when she is actually a flight attendant. And then there is Jasmine, the glamorous, self-serving kleptomaniac played with scene-stealing swagger by Kareena Kapoor. Jasmine pines for a life of luxury and goes out of her way to pretend that she has one.

The three bond over misery and modest mischief, often outraging about the harsh hand that life has dealt them. A minor accident introduces them to the widespread yet systematic scam of money laundering via gold smuggling. Hesitant at first, the three grab the opportunity to make some easy dough. Keeping their hands clean, though, becomes a choppy journey that they must undertake with schemes, deception, glamour and a noble heist to con a conman. It’s just short of the three singing ‘Bella Ciao’ (even their flight uniforms are red) at some point.

Crew review: Kareena Kapoor Khan plays Jasmine - the glamorous, self-serving kleptomaniac - with scene-stealing swagger.

A Vijay Mallya-like figure looms over the texture of this film – an airline on the brink of closure, underpaid employees and a stern watchful gaze over female figures and weights. There is a scene in which the women are objectively measured on a scale. The glamour only translates in the skimpiness of the dresses, the deep-cut necklines and ultra-glossed lips that otherwise speak rudely or, as some would say, uncultured ways. Behind the curtain of overdressing, there is a world of pain and working-class strife. Maybe a little too much for a film that wishes to be an out-and-out buddy comedy of the kind we've typically seen with male leads. Thankfully, there is a certain ease with the sex-talk, where women objectify men and talk intimacy in a manner as vain as the men they ogle would. Jasmine’s backstory, in fact, begins on the couch of a man who is caught cheating by his wife. It’s bold if divisive, possibly the only sharp turn that this otherwise mellow affair opts for in its writing.

Directed by Rajesh A Krishnan, Crew’s shortcomings sort of upstage its zealous promise and formative enterprise. That dream casting, though it elicits camaraderie, offers little in terms of nuance. Tabu and Kapoor feel held back, supplied lines and backstories that drag them down. Tabu’s equation with her wasteful brother exists for the sole purpose of a climactic cheat code. She is also stuck somewhere between indignant and cautious, domineering and confused. It feels lethargic on the part of the writing team, that barring Kapoor’s character, almost a riff of her larger-than-life persona, the three women don’t seem well-fleshed as something other than victims of their middle-class anxieties. Moreover, guest stars like Kapil Sharma and Diljit Dosanjh are woefully underused. Even if you put it down to the subversion of men in female-led films, the actors could have been handed a shade if not length and width. Of course, that subversion exists in parts – Choli Ke Peeche is used as a reclaimed theme – but it rarely manages to convince.

If nothing else, Crew still brings together two stalwart actresses who are for once, handed the reigns to sort of lead their own little horse into battle. Kriti Sanon plays her part, but most eyes would be glued to that middle-aged chemistry between Tabu and Kapoor as two contrasting leading ladies, who could have maybe imported their own disillusions about a male-dominated industry into a heist film trying to reclaim some of that dignity with the dough. But it doesn’t help that the premise itself is stretched thin to then turn to bleeped insults and vaginal gags to dispense both the humour and the internal chemistry between the three. This cast, these women at least, deserved a better, wittier script. For now, though, their flight of fancy is sufficiently engaging. For the soft-landing of success, Crew needed more than just the simulated horrors of womanhood and the stylised escape route that money purportedly serves. To which effect, the film is not dull but it’s not the rousing phenomenon the trailer suggested it would be either.