Crew Movie Review — Sucharita Tyagi
Contrary to popular belief, I Sucharita, on a personal level, don’t NEED my films to be ABOUT social change, ABOUT injustices, ABOUT feminism.
Occasionally I also, like any other person, require a film about 3 besties, dressed to 2024 fashion perfection, flirting with Diljit Dosanjh working for an airline, and smuggling gold disguised as chocolate candy across international borders.
Here for it!
Written by Nidhi Mehra and Mehul Suri, also writers on Veere Di Wedding, Crew will work better if you’ve mostly stayed away from the trailer, and promotions. For most Hindi cinema, I tend to go in blind because many an inept trailer have given away too much, including who dies and how that changes the course of the plot.
Crew is no exception. What you see is what you get, but because I went in fully unaware, perhaps I got a little bit more. But let’s get on with it.
Tabu is Geeta Sethi, Kareena is Jasmine Kohli and Kriti is Divya Rana, all air stewardesses flying short international routes on Kohinoor Airlines. And much like the Kohinoor has become a symbol of Indian riches sent abroad illegally, some employees of this airline are using their access to smuggle gold bars to a city that could be Dubai, Abu Dhabi, we are told its “Al-burj”. When the initial mule dies, these three women, who all have their own ongoing financial troubles, decide to take on the role instead, and as it happens with get-quick-rich schemes, things don’t quite work out.
Crew is such a good example of treating lighthearted comedy, light-heartedly, without having to give up on the opportunity to be pertinent, relevant, even urgent. The film DOES open with a 4th wall breaking voice over with the characters straight up looking INTO the camera and narrating their back stories most exposition-lly, but one doesn’t mind, because none of it is to be taken seriously. It’s almost as if the writers are saying, yes now we will tell you about these women by using unimaginative flashbacks, flashbacks WITHIN flashbacks, and cutaway narrated by the characters themselves for no reason, but come no see how wonderfully we’re going to dress them and everything around them, you’ll forgive this niggling little crutch. I don’t feel kindly towards inexplicable VOs, because doing away with this device is SO easy. Show, don’t tell. This is a visual medium, yes? The flashback sequences are already doing the heavy lifting no?
The strength of Crew lies in its cast, Tabu and Kareena together are formidable and Kriti Sanon too comes alive in a way I haven’t seen since Mimi, sharing screen space and dialogue with actual good actors has that effect on her performance each time, her artistry enhanced.
Tabu is Geeta Sethi the mother bear, shielding the young ones. She doesn’t let her juniors feel judged for things like body weight, offers herself up as bait when high-risk entrapment is required, and generally is at the place in her life when judgements don’t bother her, from bosses and unruly Business class passengers alike. Tabu, as one can expect, fits into this part snugly, smoothly. Its deeply satisfying to watch her effortlessly transition between her poised persona at work and the sexy banter at home she shares with her husband, played ever so sweetly by Kapil Sharma who doesn’t get enough credit for his acting abilities. To keep her unpaid colleagues ka morale up, she tells them about the time airline crew weren’t paid after 9/11 for months but eventually things got okay, but also give raunchy sex advice to a work friend, when they’re off the clock. Its human, she isn’t a type, through the run time of the film, you can try to figure out Sethi Ma’am, try to slot her, but she refuses to be put in a box, continuing to be surprising and unsusal up until the climax.
Kareena Kapoor Khan’s Jasmine too, is never a “type”. Aware that an honest life will never get her where she wants to be, Jasmine has tried every trick in the book, from stealing watches to cash from wallets. Youre not supposed to feel sorry for her, in a way Jasmine is very much an extension of the actor’s own real personality, utlised in the most fun way to create this character. She comes into a planning meeting and asks “what is this panchayat?”, takes a giant comical bite out of a cupcake in the face of someone worried about their Provident Fund, doesn’t shy away from calling friend and foe out to their face, and has no time for anyone’s sob stories, least of all her own. Is it typecasting? Another, more evolved version of pre-interval Geet or post-interval Poo? Maybe. But in the hands of Kareena Kapoor Khan, it works. The girl who wants to do only what no one will let her, while setting fashion goals, and now also tutoring a younger generation in her anarchic ways.
Kriti Sanon as Divya is the little lamb of the group, but again, not JUST that. From the generation that worked hard at school and were told a degree or an education will instantly make you acheive all your dreams, but when we stepped into the workforce not one person cared how good we were at inter-college sport or academics, Divya has been taught an honest day’s work is the ONLY solution, and hence her optimism of some imaginary ache din, still exists. She doesn’t have the street smarts of jasmine who grew up only with her grandfather, nor does she have the wisdom of Geeta who has seen many a tide turn, but as a part of this sisterhood, Divyaa wont shy away from using her what she has been told are her weaknesses, to her advantage. She’s the little lamb, who can also do the little lamb routine.
Again, like yesterday’s Patna Shukla, I’m speaking so much about the way these women characters have been written because this specific bit of writing IS the backbone of both these films, in Crew the hard work accentuated by very able performances as well. Crew is about reclaiming things women have been told are not womanly, in the most non-serious fashion. Ila Arun’s music was unwelcome in all our households because apparently ghaghra was just too blasphemous a garment to sing about. Theek hai nigodi jawani perhaps was too raunchy for a pre-teen to sing aloud in the family room, but because of her deeply agency driven songs, the singer faced a blanket ban in our homes. Crew features not one but TWO songs by her, updated to sound more modern, more alive.
When the airline owner aptly named Vijay Walia, defaults on staff salaries for months and runs away to another country, a lesser film would have turned into a social justice story. The comedy giving way to melodrama, the way Dunki did flagrantly. Crew instead, turns into a heist film, becomes funnier, haphazard in a very amusing way. I will say that the final act is a little TOO frantic, the comedy of errors skirts very very close to disassembling, but is held together by the cast, especially a very impressive Trupti Khamkar and Rajesh Sharma, character acting the HELL out of their roles.
Crew is light-handed enough to not take itself too seriously. When the ladies come close to the absconding billionaire and Jasmine steals his wallet, the first thing that comes out of it is a plastic choona bottle with a grin screw top, that she frowns at and throws away into the crowd, before taking what she really wanted. These ladies aren’t here to lead you into battle or revolt against the patriarchy. They’re just here to be audacious. They don’t want you to emulate them, don’t want to be your heroes, and don’t even want you to like them, moral science lecturing isn’t in the DNA of this film. They DO want to eat te rich though, if that something youre interested in, The movie is now in theatres, dekh aayein. And ALSO if Diljit Dosanjh makes you go weak in the knees and you’ve only imagined him being a sexy boytoy in a locker room but would like that very specifical female need to come true on the huge HUGE screen, yeah, go watch.
So, on a scale of 1 to 10, Crew is……4 stylist teams are responsible for the fab looks you’ll see in this film, shout out Manisha Melwani, Meagan Concessio, Chandini Whabi, Abhilasha Devnani. And Rhea Kapoor goes without saying. I REALLY hope I’ve got the names right, if I haven’t please correct me in the comments. Phir Subscribe kar lein channel ko.
