My Friend Pinto - Movie Review | Prateik Babbar | Kalki Koechlin | Makrand Deshpande

The ApunKaChoice movie review of My Friend Pinto
Here is another botched attempt to make a comedy movie! My Friend Pinto tries hard to make you laugh, but instead, ends up leaving you flustered. In fact, as you try to shake off the sour mood after watching this movie, you end up thinking that the title should have been Your Enemy Pinto instead of My Friend Pinto!

My Friend Pinto is a story about Pinto (Prateik Babbar), a guy grown up in a small Goan village, who heads to Mumbai after the death of his mother, to meet the only friend he has, Sameer (Arjun Mathur). Sameer was Pinto’s childhood friend who left Goa for Mumbai, and is now settled with his wife (Shruti Seth) in the big city. Pinto, who has always lived in a small village, had been writing letters frequently to Sameer. Sameer, however, was too busy with his life to even read his letters!

Trouble starts (in context of the script, as well as for the viewers) when Pinto reaches Mumbai. The basic problem with My Friend Pinto is that it has too many characters to deal with!

A Don (Makrand Deshpande) and his female love interest (Divya Dutta), Don’s twin assistants Ajay and Vijay, a traitor (Raj Zutshi) in Don’s gang who wants to be his successor after killing him, Maggie (Kalki Koechlin), an aspiring dancer, Asif (Shakeel Khan), whose father is a taxi driver, and several other characters cram the movie! The problem is not with the characters per se, but the way they have been handled!

Makrand Deshpande is perhaps the most irritating Don yet! And if you thought after watching Tees Maar Khan that Raghu Ram and Rajiv Laxman are the most nauseating twins you will ever get to witness on screen, the characters Ajay and Vijay prove you wrong! Watching them literally makes you feel like pulling your hair out! Kalki Koechlin’s character is underdeveloped in the movie.

A couple of pointers here: initially in the movie, Pinto is portrayed as the brand ambassador of bad luck (Manhoof, as Shahid Kapoor’s character in Kaminey would say). However, in the run-up to the climax, he is shown as a lucky charm for Asif as he makes him win a lot of money in a casino and even gives him a winning mantra for the future! Not only this, unintentionally, he even ends up saving Don’s life!

How can a character reducing the vases to pieces, setting a car on fire, originating water leakages and breaking handles of suitcases turn a lucky charm all of a sudden without any source as Vidya Balan in Kismat Konnection? Wink.

Also, Prateik reveals in the movie that he wants to become a priest! Which wannabe priest on earth will dance with a gorgeous lady (Kalki Koechlin) in the rains and even accept a small peck from her on his cheeks? Just not happening!

Anyhow, speaking about the lead actors, Prateik Babbar does an okay job as the helpless and friendly Pinto. Though there were places where he looked expressionless, but overall he was passable! Kalki Koechlin doesn’t have much to do in the movie! However, needless to say, she did look petty!

The music of the movie is below par! None of the tracks leave an impact on you. The album lacks the punch.

Coming to direction, Raghav Dar fails to impress us whatsoever. My Friend Pinto is literally void of humour and emotions! Hardly any scene where one can have a hearty laugh or wipe a tear off the eye!

The only amusing moment I had while watching the movie was when Chammak Challo was being played during the interval! Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s production venture fails to make an impression.

We would like to end by making an addition to a dialogue which Prateik Babbar says a hundred times in the movie, Mumma kehti hai. “Mumma kehti hai this movie is a bore!”

We give it 1.5 stars out of 5.