Go Goa Gone

I've been a zombie movie follower for some time (sometimes unwillingly). This movie obviously breaks ground as far as Bollywood goes - it is a respectable (?) zombie movie.

Any respectable camp zombie movie should have the following, IMHO - an unconvincing social message (e.g. Romero's "Dawn of the dead" was a backhanded critique of consumer capitalism and mall crawls, Danny Boyle's "28 days later" against irresponsible experimentation), references to other movies of the same genre (e.g. Shaun of the dead), and some innovative twist or variation.

Go Goa Gone scores on all three - it has a (tacked-on) message against drug culture, references to other zombie movies including Shaun of the dead (whose solutions are quickly discarded, since it should be obvious to the gentle viewer that desi/pardesi zombies in Goa are different from desi/British zombies in England), and an enjoyably terrible "solution". Also, good music, which Danny Boyle would concur with.

All in all, a respectable attempt!! As a camp horror addict, I am satisfied!! Also, a memorable quote that does not quite reach the heights of "When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth" - it goes: "What do we know? What have we learned?"

I gave this movie 10/10 simply because I found everyone's work commendable. This is definitely one of the best comedy movies in Hindi cinema. This movie will unfortunately not appeal to an audience that enjoys the big budget movies of the Khans ( no, not in the same league). Kunal Khemu and Vir Das have excellent comic timing. The dialogs were hilarious. The songs are very catchy!! The girls in the movie are great eye-candy. Refreshing is a word that comes to mind!! The other lesser known actors outshone Saif Ali Khan. It is fair to assume that there could be a sequel based on the way the movie ended. I am going to repeat. Refreshing.Entertaining.Funny.

I went in for the opening show expecting just as much as everyone else did from a film which built the hype calling itself the first ZomCom (Zombie Comedy) of Indian cinema, and I felt the movie delivered.

The storyline itself is pretty simple with two stoner guys taking a trip to Goa with their socially inept friend where the effects of a new breakout drug go horribly wrong for the partying vacationers. The rest is just classic zombie-killing fun with guns, knives, whatever-comes-handy and more guns! The fun elements come from the rough language used throughout which doesn't try too hard and admirable visual effects. The ending might be predictable for those who have watched a fair share of Apocalypse movies but the film itself was quite fresh for me since it didn't try to shove another love story down the throats of the viewers.

The acting was decent and the characters themselves were well-designed for this kind of film. Since it's a ZomCom, you might not get the gore scare you might be looking for. But if you enjoy youth-oriented comedies and are in for the Indian "Shawn of the Dead", this is the movie for you! Go watch it, before it's Gone.

If Illuminati had any reservations while producing this risky film they should be laid to rest.The movie has the right pace and gels well with the youth.The movie is teeming with witty one-liners and comedy sequences.The songs are quite peppy and keep going on in your mind for a long time after watching the movie.The best role is of Kunal Khemu who just steals the show a bit from Vir Das(loved him in Delhi Belly).Pooja Gupta looks hot all the time.Saif's cameo is awesome as pseudo Russian 'BAREES'(Boris).Their antics keep the audience rolling with laughter in major part of the movie.Some of the dialogues are just awesome"Haan Dilli Se Hun Bhainchod","Jungle Ke Beech Main Dumbcharades Thode Na Khelunga"and "I Keeel Ded People".A bit loose ending but isn't ending movies like this the hardest part?.Hint of a sequel? We'll have to wait and see the fate of this one.

Go Goa Gone is a pretty good movie for the first of its kind in Bollywood. Apart from your typical Bollywood annoyances this movie was quite entertaining. Granted my opinion on this is fairly biased given my love for Zombie flicks, however I believe it stands on its own. The movie borrowed ideas from Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead that were easily recognizable and familiar; although nowhere as blatantly as many other Bollywood movie. Also, the setting of the movie felt eerily like the video game: Dead Island. Few scenes felt like they were exactly the same as some missions in the game.

The overall acting was good and the jokes were smart and stuck for most parts, some more than others. The chemistry between the three protagonists, and overall cast was spot on. Saif Ali Khan's pseudo Russian Mafioso was an entertaining gag when originally introduced but it got a little old and drabby after a while. The female lead in the movie was underused and felt like a background character, other than being your prototypical Bollywood 'Damsel in distress'.

The plot is very simple (like any other zombie movie) and can be easily figured out. The movie follows a very typical zombie flick formula: Intro to the main character, putting them in a setting of zombies, explaining the origin of zombies (little lacklustre in this move), figuring out how to fight and kill zombies, the lack of ability to shoot the zombies and mastering the headshot by the end of the movie, and so on. This movie is as original as any zombie movie can get. Every scene of the movie was fairly predictable. Not to say that this is a bad thing, all zombie movies are alike. It's the chemistry between the characters that really separate the greats from the rest. As liner as this movie was, the surprising anecdote about zombies which was cheesier than the cheesiest cheese cake, felt original. I laughed out loud several times during the movie; admittedly the humor was along the lines of 3 Idiots and Delhi Belly i.e. buddy movies with a lot of raunch.

The movie was 1 hour and 48 minutes in length, which is a little long for a movie of this sort. 1 hour and 30 to 40 minutes max would be ideal for a zombie flick. It's hard to keep the audience immersed. The jokes get lazy and pushy and the situations where protagonist has to escape the zombie hoards get nuttier and nuttier to the point of complete disbelief

My biggest complaint against this movie is its anti-smoking campaign.

It's almost ridiculous to see an anti-smoking campaign in a movie about pot-smoking booze hounds itching for parties that feature Mary Jane. There was an abundance of smoking scenes that featured small messages warning against smoking. It's almost like the NRA running ads that featured gun-related killings and having messages popping up simultaneously that say "Don't shoot people in the face. Shooting people in the face is bad." I understand that the movie means well and doesn't want to glamorize smoking, but omitting smoking altogether from the movie would be more effective anti-smoking rhetoric than a miniscule, meaningless and insincere insulting sign at the bottom of the screen.

Overall though, I would recommend this movie to any zombie fans out there. If you're not a fan of Bollywood but enjoy zombies it's still worth the watch. The nod to Bollywood cheesiness near the end of the movie was worth the price all on its own.There were obvious "Are you serious? He would totally get bitten in that situation." type of scenes and the anti-smoking messages were very annoying. However, they are forgivable because it's Bollywood's first attempt at the genre and from the looks of it they have done a good job.