Matthew Turner | On 28, May 2020

Directors: Vipul Shah
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Neha Dhupia, Aditya Roy Kapoor, Rannvijay Singh, Om Puri
Certificate: 12
Watch Action Replayy online in the UK: Netflix UK

Wondering how to fill the time travel gap now that Travelers and Timeless have been cancelled? Transport yourself no further than Time Travel Thursdays, our column devoted to time travel movies on Netflix. It’s on Thursdays.

If you’re going to rip off a time travel movie, it might as well be Back to the Future, which is pretty much the sine qua non of the genre in the modern era. Indeed, Back to the Future itself has recently been made into a musical, so you could say this 2010 Bollywood musical was ahead of its time in that respect, taking the basic story template and adding song-and-dance numbers. Unfortunately, despite assembling the right ingredients, Action Replayy ends up tossing them all aside in favour of a bog-standard, lazily written rom-com plot.

Nominally based on a play of the same name, the film begins in 2010 India, where 25-year-old Bunty (Aditya Roy Kapoor) is dragging his feet over proposing to girlfriend Tanya (Sudeepa Singh) because his parents, Kishen (Akshay Kumar) and Mala (Aishwarya Rai), are unhappily married. When an argument at a party proves the final straw, Kishen and Mala announce their intention to divorce, so Bunty steals a time machine created by Tanya’s uncle (Randhir Kapoor as Professor Gonsalves) and travels back to 1975, hoping to convince his parents to fall in love again.

The fact that that’s as far as the plot goes in terms of motivation is a sign of just how little director Vipul Shah cares about the time travel aspects. In Back to the Future, Marty’s arrival in 1955 directly derails his parents’ romantic prospects, largely because his own mother falls for him. Unsurprisingly, Action Replayy steers well clear of any potential incest – instead it’s implied that Bunty’s parents only got together in the first place because it was an arranged marriage (a potentially interesting detail that goes largely unexplored), so he has to nudge them into a “love marriage” instead. (Mala, for her part, quickly announces that she thinks of Bunty as a brother, just in case that wasn’t clear.)

Action Replayy also has its Biff Tannen figure, in the shape of romantic rival Kundan (Rannvijay Singh), who bullies Kishen both in 2010 and 1975. However, he’s also side-lined by the script (Bunty pays a cop to have him thrown in jail to keep him out of the way), in favour of the tried-and-tested rom-com trope of giving nerdy Kishen a super-cool makeover and having him ignore Mala until she falls in love with him. Needless to say, gender politics is not this film’s strong suit.

It’s surprising how much effort the production puts into its actual time machine. Visually, it’s quite an impressive little number, constructed of whirring mechanical bits (shades of H.G. Wells) and flashing lights. It can fly too, not that the plot puts that to any use. It’s also frustrating that the film under-uses Kapoor’s Professor – Bunty tracks down the younger version (just like Marty and Doc Brown), but he’s only there to get the time machine working again in time for the end of the movie.

Sadly, the script’s laziness extends much further than only being interested in the rom-com side of things. As a result, it’s completely devoid of tension (Bunty’s not remotely worried that he might never be born) and doesn’t explore or comment on cultural differences between 1975 and 2010. In fact, other than a few historical jokes – “Enjoy that Coca-Cola, it’ll be banned in two years” – and some colourful costumes, you’d never guess that the film was set in the 70s at all.

Even as a rom-com, the film is decidedly lacklustre. The comedy frequently falls flat (there’s a fart gag, seemingly just for the sake of it) and it’s clear that the producers thought just making superstar Kumar look like a nerd would have audiences rolling in the aisles.

That said, the musical routines are lively and colourful, enhanced by Kushmar and Rai’s undeniable star power, and the film does at least have the heart to give its bully a happy ending. Ultimately, Action Replayy makes for a very disappointing time travel movie and the paper-thin plotting means there’s not enough romance or comedy to sustain the film’s lengthy running time.

 

Action Replayy is available on Netflix UK, as part of an £9.99 monthly subscription.

 

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