Short films are the new black for Bollywood actors, it seems. Weeks after Radhika Apte appeared in Sujoy Ghosh's short Ahalya, actors Manoj Bajpayee (previously spelt 'Bajpai') and Raveena Tandon have appeared in a short film called Jai Hind. The duo will be seen together on screen for the first time since Aks (2001).
It would've been a fantastic on-screen reunion, had the short, directed by Vinay Jaiswal, not been this hilariously jingoistic. Bajpayee and Tandon play a middle-class married couple, making dinner plans, when their motorbike collides with a car.
The driver, instead of getting out and helping them, opens the door to reveal that he is supposedly white (the actor playing him looks like he could've belonged to any nationality, including being Indian) and says "Bloody Indian!" in an indeterminate accent before driving off.
What follows is an unintentionally hilarious melodrama featuring terrible extras played by sundry foreign nationals and Bajpayee hamming it up as though he's been asked to emulate Shah Rukh Khan on a terrible day. The eventual message — of being thankful for the freedoms we enjoy today — is lost in a mire of amateurishness and barely-concealed xenophobia.
Watch the video above.
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