Movie Review: * * 1/2

Chalo Dilli is a situational comedy starring comedy King Vinay Pathak and Lara Dutta. The movie revolves around an arduous journey to Delhi that takes the uptight, hoity toity Lara Dutta through different modes of transport, a dhabha, a shady motel and a verbose man who brazenly burps and farts in front of her.

Lara Dutta plays Mihika, an investment banker who misses her flight to Delhi. She is forced to then hop onto a low cost carrier, much against her wishes and ends up in Jaipur thanks to air traffic diversions. Here she meets Manu Gupta, played by Vinay Pathak, a man she has been bumping into from the beginning of her flight. And then the two undertake an almost never ending journey to Delhi which will bring Lara closer to nature and reality.

The movie is great till we break into the intermission and should have actually just been that long. As the journey increases to the fatigue and irritation of Lara, the film begins to tire us as well. All the enjoyable moments begin to lose their novelty and we start getting subjected to predictable run of the mill stuff.

Despite the odds, that the movie is another feather in the cap of new age movie makers cannot be denied. It captures the local flavours of small towns with immense elan and does a reality check for overworked, high headed city dwellers like us. The gags are good and effortless and the behavior of both the characters very true to reality especially for Delhiites.

Vinay Pathak as always performs superlatively. He just manages to don the skin of his characters so easily that it isn’t tough for us to imagine him as the typical old Delhi shopkeeper who chews  Paan Masala and throws the wrapper wherever he wants. Lara Dutta is quite endearing as Mihika. And before I go, I must tell you that there is a surprise element in the film which you should watch the film to discover.