Khel Khel Mein

 Khel Khel Mein movie review: Akshay Kumar exhibits flair in no-holds-barred comedy

Khel Khel Mein movie review: A little more of the some-men-will never-change just like leopards and their spots would have made this Akshay Kumar-Taapsee Pannu film a no-holds-barred banger.

Akshay Kumar Khel Khel Mein Review: Married couples, infidelity, and attendant dark secrets come up for a dissection in ‘Khel Khel Mein’, which borrows the name of a popular 70s comedy but is very different in tone and tenor. This desi adaptation of the 2016 Italian film ‘Perfect Strangers’ opts for the setting of a Big Fat Indian Wedding, which allows its participants to be all very shiny before everything goes south over a long night of big reveals.

Cheat? Who? Me? Never! The first port of call of every single cheat in the world, whichever part they live in, is denial. Some are good at it, so they can look straight-faced while lying through their teeth: Example A, plastic surgeon Rishabh (Akshay Kumar) who tells wife Vartika (Vaani Kapoor) that his incessant scrolling on the cellphone is entirely professional even as he is leering at a well-constructed, scantily-clad female rib-cage.

Cell-phones, in point of fact, become the instrument through which we see the real faces of the seven adults across the table, where a game of truth-and-bare-to-dare is on. Apart from Rishabh and Vartika, both in the middle of taking a step back from their childless marriage, there are two more couples and a singleton minus significant other.

Harpreet (Ammy Virk) and Harpreet aka Happy (Taapsee Pannu), him a Honda car dealer and her a harried housewife, have troubles of their own. As do rich daddy’s poor little girl Naina (Pragya Jaiswal) and her spouse Samar (Aditya Seal), trying to make his way up the professional ladder with a bit of help. The seventh is sports coach Kabir (Fardeen Khan) is hiding something fundamental, taking recourse to the human propensity to lie and cheat, and take the easy way out.