Vaisakhi List
Synopsis:
There is Jarnail Singh hanging upside down from a rusted ceiling fan in a dilapidated government office while screaming at the top of his lungs about a stolen pair of designer shoes, and honestly, if you are going to watch Vaisakhi List, you better brace yourself for this exact brand of frantic energy. But to understand why a grown man is dangling from a fan and why everyone in the room is shouting, we gotta go back to the start of this wild ride. Jimmy Shergill plays Jarnail and Sunil Grover plays Tarsem, and these two guys are sharing a damp, miserable jail cell because they are small-time criminals with exceptionally terrible luck. The movie opens by establishing that they aren't hardened gangsters, just ordinary guys who got caught up in petty scams and domestic chaos, and Jarnail is constantly pacing around while Tarsem is trying to catch a nap on a concrete slab. They are counting down the days until their release, dreaming of freedom and revenge against the people who put them behind bars, because in the grand tradition of bollywood movies, prison is just a temporary setback before the real comedy of errors begins. One afternoon, while sweeping the courtyard or doing some other mundane chore, they manage to get their hands on a list of prisoners who are scheduled to be released early on Vaisakhi as part of a government clemency program. Now, you would think they would just wait patiently, but where is the fun in that, so they hatch a ridiculous escape plan involving stolen guard uniforms, terrible disguises, and a lot of frantic running through dusty Punjabi lanes. Right after that mad dash to freedom, the film just drops a random romantic track where Shruti Sodhi pops up looking gorgeous in a brightly colored suit, and it makes zero sense within the plot because they are fugitive convicts running for their lives, but hey, that is just how typical hindi films operate when the director needs a song break. Jaswinder Bhalla enters the frame around this point as a wonderfully frustrated cop who is hot on their trail, and his comedic timing is honestly the best part of the whole production, yelling iconic lines and shaking his fist at the sky every time Jarnail and Tarsem slip through his fingers. We spend an ungodly amount of time watching Jaswinder Bhalla try to interrogate a completely deaf and uncooperative tea vendor who is wearing a fluorescent yellow turban that keeps catching the light whenever the camera pans, and this specific background extra takes up a solid five minutes of screen time with his dramatic tea-pouring technique while the main plot just freezes completely. Then the boys rush through three different safe houses, kidnap a corrupt politician's cousin by accident, steal a red tractor, and somehow end up hiding inside a massive wedding tent all in the span of thirty seconds. The interval hits right when they are surrounded by fifty armed wedding guests and the police force simultaneously, leaving our heroes trapped behind a giant wedding cake with nowhere to run. That is the interval block. So then the second half kicks off with a totally chaotic brawl where wedding furniture is flying everywhere and the cake gets smashed right into Jaswinder Bhalla's face, which brings us back to the present moment of the film. They realize the Vaisakhi list they stole actually had a clerical error and they weren't even supposed to be freed early, which panics them even more because now they are escapees running from a legal sentence they didn't even technically finish. They keep trying to sneak back into the jail to fix the paperwork without getting caught by the warden, but every single attempt leads to another massive slapstick disaster involving runaway goats, collapsing scaffolding, and buckets of white paint. Among all modern hindi movies, this one really leans hard into the classic regional Punjabi comedy style, relying heavily on loud shouting, exaggerated facial expressions, and fast-paced dialogue that flies right past you if you aren't paying attention. Jarnail and Tarsem finally get cornered on a rooftop by the entire police department, and instead of giving up, they threaten to jump off the building unless the IG signs their pardon papers right then and there. Total chaos. The IG actually agrees just to stop the embarrassment, and the boys celebrate by dancing wildly on the edge of the roof while the credits start rolling.
Sunil Grover has a very particular way of tilting his head before delivering a punchline that makes you forget, for at least three seconds, that you are sitting in a dark room watching a Punjabi comedy from 2016 that cost a fraction of what a standard-issue romance over in Mumbai usually burns through on catering alone. It is a small thing, but it bugged me how the sound design occasionally dropped his dialogue right in the middle of those beats, cutting off the natural room tone as if someone in the mix stage got overzealous with a noise gate.
Smeared across the sprawling, often chaotic landscape of regional cinema, *Vaisakhi List* tries to squeeze an entire season's worth of frantic prison-break antics into roughly two hours of screen time without ever quite figuring out whether it wants to be a slapstick farce or a gritty caper picture. Directed by Smeep Kang, who previously showed a sharper hand for timing in *Carry On Jatta*, the film sets up an absurd premise involving two inmates who inadvertently walk out of jail right before a major holiday, only to spend the rest of the runtime running from everyone they ever knew while trying to figure out how to get back inside without getting caught.
Jimmy Shergill plays the straight man with that weary, perpetually exhausted expression he has practically patented over the years, looking like a man who just wants to go home and read a book but keeps getting dragged into nonsense by people shouting at the top of their lungs. He is serviceable, not great, not bad, just there, anchoring scenes where Shruti Sodhi is given very little to do other than look concerned near doorways or react to whatever scheme the men have just cooked up in the background.
The screenplay by Naresh Kathooria lurches forward in fits and starts, abandoning narrative logic whenever a new comic set-piece needs to be shoved into the frame. Jaswinder Bhalla shows up as the exasperated cop on their tail, barking orders with a gravelly authority that occasionally borders on genuine intimidation before the script pulls the rug out from under him for another cheap sight gag involving mistaken identity and misplaced trousers. It shares a certain manic energy with early Priyadarshan comedies, though without the intricate web of interlocking lies that made those Hindi movies actually work on a mechanical level.
Baljit Singh’s cinematography keeps things bright and sun-baked, sometimes too bright, washing out the rustic textures of Punjab in favor of a flat, digital sheen that makes every outdoor location look like a corporate park on a Sunday morning. The background score by Jassi Katyal hits you over the head with repetitive stings every time a character makes a funny face, which happens roughly every forty seconds, draining the humor out of moments that might have worked better if they had just been allowed to breathe for an extra beat.
There is an underlying anxiety about respectability and small-town aspiration running beneath the surface of the plot, though the filmmakers are far too interested in fart jokes and slapstick chases to actually interrogate any of it. The prisoners are not rebels or political dissidents, just hapless blokes caught in bureaucratic gears that turn too fast for them to understand, reflecting a broader cultural fatigue with institutions that promise much and deliver paperwork.
The supporting cast features at least one actor whose dubbing is so horribly out of sync with his mouth movements that you can practically see the recording booth microphone rattling in the audio track. When the narrative finally winds down to its frantic, illogical climax involving mistaken identities at a crowded wedding celebration, you are left wondering why everybody involved was in such a rush to get to the finish line when the journey itself was already this messy.