Selfiee movie review: A reasonably entertaining Akshay Kumar starrer after a long time

Cast: Akshay Kumar, Emraan Hashmi, Nushrratt Bharuccha, Diana Penty, Meghna Malik, Mahesh Thakur, Abhimanyu Singh, Adah Sharma, Mrunal Thakur               

Director: Raj Mehta

Language: Hindi 

It’s been a couple of decades since remakes of big-budget Telugu and Tamil blockbusters became all the rage in Bollywood. Over the years, transposing a men-centric masala-inflected culturally generic storyline from a southern to a northern Indian setting and replacing a big, bankable male star from the south with a big, bankable male star from the north became a safe bet for Hindi film producers and stars. Akshay Kumar is one of Bollywood’s top men actors whose career has benefited greatly from this formula. Malayalam cinema has proved to be a tougher nut to crack since this film industry is best known outside Kerala not for its overtly commercial fare lionising men stars, but for thoughtful, culturally rooted middle-of-the-road films. These are harder to relocate, which is the likely reason why Bollywood has mostly stayed away from them in the pre-pandemic era, with occasional attempts such as the heartwarming Katha Parayumpol remade to lukewarm effect as the Irrfan starrer Billu or Manichitrathazhu revisited as the qualitatively lesser but financially fruitful Bhool Bhulaiyaa with Akshay.

In recent years with streaming platforms giving the pan-India audience easy access to cinema of all languages, Hindi remakes of south Indian films have proved to be much more challenging. Already under fire for its lack of originality, Bollywood has spent the pandemic turning out a parade of unimaginative remakes, including remakes of a number of critically acclaimed Malayalam hits. These Hindi versions have either had nothing new to offer (Vikram Vedha, Jersey) or were politically and culturally watered down versions of their originals (Mili reworked from Helen being a prime example). The Hindi remakes of Jeethu Joseph’s Drishyam films starring Mohanlal have been honourable exceptions, with directors Nishikant Kamat and Abhishek Pathak respectively giving thought and consideration to the changed settings of the Hindi Drishyam 1 and Drishyam 2, both starring Ajay Devgn.

Selfiee is the official Hindi remake of the Malayalam film Driving Licence. The latter starred Prithviraj Sukumaran as a Malayalam superstar who public clashes with his fan, a motor vehicle inspector played by Suraj Venjaramoodu. While supremely entertaining, Driving Licence also ended up being a telling commentary on the dynamics that automatically come into play when a David and Goliath go into battle, the power of the smallest cog in the wheel, the politics in film industries, the ephemeral nature of celebritydom in the era of sensationalist TV news and much more. I don’t understand the bankruptcy of ideas afflicting Hindi filmdom right now, or why Selfiee needed to be made at all when the smartly produced Driving Licence is just a hop, a skip and an Amazon Prime subscription away, but given that remakes are the go-to routine for Bollywood these days, I guess this one is better than most. Selfiee is a fun even if flashier version of Driving Licence that is sometimes less thoughtful than the Malayalam film but in some parts surprisingly better thought out.

In Selfiee, based on the story by Sachy, Akshay plays Vijay Kumar, a Bollywood veteran who is shooting in Bhopal when he suddenly needs a new driving licence at short notice. Vijay is juggling a personal crisis, shooting requirements and his producer’s desperation when he is asked to meet the motor vehicle inspector Om Prakash Agarwal (Emraan Hashmi) for a few minutes for this purpose. The meeting is arranged through the local corporator (Meghna Malik) so that Om Prakash, who is Vijay’s diehard fan, can fulfil his dream of getting a selfie with his beloved actor while also being able to explain himself if questions are raised about how a star’s licence was expedited when the general public is put through the grind by his office.

A misunderstanding at Vijay and Om Prakash’s first meeting leaves Vijay enraged and Om Prakash hurt beyond words. Om Prakash then digs in his heels and insists that Vijay must go through the entire rigmarole of form filling and tests that ordinary citizens endure to procure a driving licence, thus leading to a media tamasha unleashing forces beyond both their control.

For the most part, director Raj Mehta embraces Lal Jr’s easy storytelling style that served Driving Licence so well. The occasional departures from the original tend to adversely affect its natural tone but they are few enough to be endurable. The background score, for one, feels more insistent here. The Hindi screenplay by Rishabh Sharma tones down the movie star’s arrogance, which is probably intentional, but also inexplicably subtracts from the manipulations that stars have to fight on a daily basis. Vijay’s producer and rival feel like caricatures in comparison with the characters played by Lalu Alex and Suresh Krishna in the original. Selfiee is flashier than Driving Licence – with a loud song ‘n’ dance routine written into the storyline as an introduction for Om Prakash, Akshay given an unnecessarily larger-than-life moment towards the end that pales in comparison with the much more convincing crowd scene Prithviraj dealt with, and a high-glam remix of the hit number Main Khiladi Tu Anari appended in a clichéd fashion to the closing credits – but for the most part, it retains the spirit and meaning of the original.

(A long version of this review will be up shortly)

Selfiee is in theatres

Anna M.M. Vetticad is an award-winning journalist and author of The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic. She specialises in the intersection of cinema with feminist and other socio-political concerns. Twitter: @annavetticad, Instagram: @annammvetticad, Facebook: AnnaMMVetticadOfficial

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