A quirky comedy about computer hacking
Director: Saurabh Varma
Cast: Manish Paul, Elli Avram, Puja Gupta and Varun Badola
Mickey Virus is TV comic Mainsh Paul’s debut film. It’s a mix of a hacker flick aka Hackers (1995), which had a group of rival hackers going one up against each other and a slacker comedy like Animal House (1978). The sole purpose of the central character in that comedy is to do as little as humanly possible to get a job done and Mickey Arora (Manish Paul) shares the philosophy. It’s a nice premise for a film, especially if the hero is a hacker as well and is always on the lookout for loopholes into computer programs. A group of shady characters con our hero into tapping into a bank’s website and stealing 100 crores. Now the police are after him and so are the baddie hackers, whose favourite pastime is to bump people off using cyanide.
Manish makes a good beginning on big screen. He’s relaxed and natural and does bring out this vela Delhi boy alive through his performance. Elli Avram is good eye candy and serves her purpose of being his fantasy come to life. But the acting chops awards go to Varun Badola, who plays his laidback Haryanvi cop character with panache.
The film dawdles between being a comedy and a heist film and could have done with a tauter screenplay and tighter editing. Post interval, it becomes a full-fledged thriller and hence the proceedings go off-kilter. Barring Manish, the rest of the characters needed fleshing out. There is also a constant reference to an underworld type who doesn’t make an appearance. It would have been nice to see another spanner in the works.
All-in-all, it’s a nice enough beginning for Manish. He’s played to his strengths and he would continue to shine if he chooses films wisely in future too.