Crew Review: Chicks That Don’t Take Off

Crew Star Cast/ Actors: Kareena Kapoor Khan As Jasmine, Tabu As Geeta, Kriti Sanon As Divya, Kapil Sharma As Arjun, Diljit Dosanjh As Customs Officer Jaiveer, Kulbhushan Kharbanda As Jasmine’s Grandfather And Rajesh Sharma As Mittal

Crew Director: Rajesh Krishnan

Crew Release Date: March 29, 2024

Crew Available On: Theatrical Release and (likely to be released on Netflix)

Crew Released/ Available In Languages: Hindi

Crew Runtime: 118 Minutes

Crew Critic Review:

It’s an interesting cast fraught with sparkling possibilities. Geeta (Tabu), Jasmine (Kareena Kapoor Khan) and Divya (Kriti Sanon), in-flight crew of Kohinoor Airlines, have fun on the job. But with salaries unpaid for six months and travel allowance trimmed, it’s increasingly tough to pay their bills.

Geeta dreams of setting up a restaurant in Goa with house-husband Arjun (Kapil Sharma) and can’t wait to get her PF. Ever since her parents’ divorce, Jasmine has lived with her grandfather (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) and yearned for the high-end life, flicking a passenger’s watch to pay the rent. Divya whose parents believe she’s a pilot, can’t meet her EMI payments.

“Beauty queen se bai kab ban gayi?” wonders Jasmine who’s always been inclined towards the left of the law, indulging in little scams from her school days. Luxuriating in a five-star suite, she’s rudely interrupted when the guy she’s checked in with has a wife storming in. “Presidential Suite wale married hi rehte hai,” Jasmine cribs as she scoots.

Some parts come off well. Customs officer Jaiveer (Diljit Dosanjh) provides a whiff of welcome romance in Divya’s life and Saswata Chatterjee plays Vijay Walia, a take-off on scamster Vijay Mallya, the selfish ‘King of Good Times’ who left his employees in dire straits. While air hostess and single mom Komal (Pooja Bhamrah) is unable to pay her kid’s fees and has to pull him out of Montessori, Walia throws lavish parties in Al Burj, suitcases full of gold stashed away in his presidential suite.  

Armed with all this, writers Nidhi Mehra and Mehul Suri could’ve come up with a really rollicking, irreverent comedy with women and camaraderie powering it. However, their writing and Rajesh A Krishnan’s direction hit two major air-pockets into which the story sinks. One is the number of questionable turns in the narration. A minor one is how the three friends are always on the same flight. Another is on why Divya needs to lie to her perfectly accommodating parents. Isn’t not getting the job you desire a part of most people’s lives and understood by reasonable families? A more important flaw is when Geeta, Jasmine and Divya confront the crooked and deceitful head of HR Manoj Mittal (Rajesh Sharma). Anybody else would’ve simply extracted their dues, and perhaps more, from him. Why on earth would normal young women with some modicum of integrity want to join his smuggling business? Later, when they pull up their colleague for tattling on them to the authorities, they sure don’t get your sympathy. 

For the climax, the three of them entice Mittal into helping them settle scores with Walia like they’re tempting a child with a lollipop. The commonplace ant-and-elephant analogy that was seen far more effectively in this week’s Patna Shuklla gets a repeat here.

There are also so many convenient, falling-into-place turns that it’s juvenile. The Gulf may be a vast stretch of geography studded with luxury hotels but Geeta conveniently has a sister-in-law in the same hotel they want to get into. Though a lowly employee in the kitchen, the sis-in-law can fix jobs for them at the hotel overnight. Jasmine has a hacker at home to fix the security footage. She can even fly a plane by reading the manual in the cockpit and land without ATC guidance.

As for the humour, whatever happened to Rajesh A Krishnan who directed the wacky Lootcase in 2020? Sub-inspector Mala (Trupti Khamkar) banging the table forever out of frustration, Tabu yelling, “Get out” to Jasmine and Divya who’re throwing insults at each other or Jasmine’s Plan B and the climax on Walia’s aircraft, don’t evoke even a smile.

Scenes like the one where Jaiveer accepts that Mala was right after all and another when he shrugs off Divya’s attempt to patch up, are compact. Except for Diljit Dosanjh who makes his presence felt, even the performances by Tabu, Kareena, Kriti don’t sparkle. Kapil Sharma, who’s never impressive on the big screen, has mercifully little to do.

The disappointment is that women’s power takes a nosedive with the effort to make you laugh and the attempts to come off as cool as the Sex & The City ladies, too obvious and strained. It is ultimately, a humourless ride, implausible to boot.

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Crew– Watch Or Not?: Wait for it to stream on OTT if you are a fan of chick flicks.

Crew Review Score Rating:  2 out of 5 (i.e. 2/5)

Crew Official Trailer:

Also Read: Patna Shuklla Review: Victory For Justice & Gender-Respect