Rajesh Krishnan directs the Hindi movie Crew, which stars Kriti Sanon, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Tabu, Diljit Dosanjh, Kapil Sharma, Saswata Chatterjee, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Pooja Bhamrrah, and Myra Singh. It is currently showing in cinemas in Dubai, such as VOX Cinema and Reel Cinemas.
Overall, the Crew, starring Kareena Kapoor, Tabu and Kriti Sanon, could have been better, but there was at least no major turbulence due to the lead’s performance.
The Good
- Acting of the leads
- Breezy narrative
- Strong women characters
The Bad
- Patchy comedy
- Surface level plot
Any flight experience is as dependent on the pilot as it is on the cabin crew. It is no different for the film Crew, about three women cabin crew members of a financially-starved airline who speak at life’s crossroads. The film is more saved by the crew (of three women) than by the captain (director).
Despite the perfunctory writing and surface-level plot, the three doughty women, played with verve by Kareena Kapoor, Kriti Sanon and Tabu, ensure that Crew is a relatively smooth flight. The film’s humour, despite being patchy, saves it. Despite being a bit underwhelming, the heist part of the story doesn’t trouble you. Bollywood hasn’t attempted such a heist plot with an all-woman team before. In that sense, it is novel.
The story takes off from the troubled story of Kingfisher Airlines and its embattled CEO, Vijay Mallya. The bankrupt airline is Kohinoor, and its CEO is Vijay Walia (Saswata Chatterjee). Despite their salaries being delayed for a long time, the airline’s troubled financial status is not known to Geeta Sethi (Tabu), Jasmine Kohli (Kareena Kapoor Khan), and Divya Rana (Kriti Sanon), who work as cabin crew.
They have different backstories. Geeta and her husband Arun (Kapil Sharma) must contend with avaricious and manipulative relatives. Divya is trained to be a pilot but doesn’t get a job due to issues in the airline industry (thanks to the pandemic). She becomes an air hostess while her family thinks she is a pilot. And then there is Jasmine, who lives with her granddad (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) as her parents had died when she was young. She knows the importance of money and has moved to a belief system where money is paramount. The larger predicament of the three is the same — they are financially starved.
And in this situation, they get sucked into a high-stakes gold heist after a senior flight attendant dies, and they stumble on to the fact that he was a gold carrier. In the meantime, they also know that their company is barely afloat and the money they are owed as salaries may never reach them.
Desperate situations call for desperate measures, as they say. And so the trio, in a cornered state, decides to become gold smugglers. But there are law and customs officials to manoeuvre, especially Jaiveer (Diljit Dosanjh), who happens to be an old pal of Divya. Can the three pull it off?
The biggest heist that Crew pulls off is that this is a women empowerment movie without much noise. Its easy and free-spirited ways take our eyes off how three independent women choose to change the course of their troubled family lives.
As said, Kriti, Kareena, and Tabu are top-notch in no particular order. Even if their characters are written unevenly, their performances are impressive. They show a lot of spunk and spirit, making us overlook the narrative’s flaws. The rest of the cast has nothing much to do.
All said and done, Crew’s in-flight experience could have been better. But thanks to the crew, there is no major turbulence.