Jahaan Chaar Yaar tells an interesting story of a bunch of housewives, frustrated with their day-to-day lives, embarking on a trip to Goa. The first 15-20 minutes are superb and one expects that the film will emerge as a winner. Sadly, the film soon goes haywire. The film is riddled with continuity issues and needless back-and-forth narrative. Also, the film becomes quite complicated once it turns into a crime drama. To make matters worse, the Censor Board has been very unfair to the film. In a dialogue, Putin has been muted and replaced with VP, his initials! I can understand abusive words being replaced with safe words. But what’s the harm if the Russian president’s name is uttered, especially when our films have made fun of Trump and other world leaders? The performances save the day to an extent. Swara Bhasker is entertaining. Pooja Chopra plays the tough act nicely. Shikha Talsania underplays her part. Meher Vij is decent but is letdown by her character. Girish Kulkarni is too good. Nayani Dixit (Inspector Alisha) leaves a mark and raises laughs. Manish Chaudhari, Ali Quli Mirza and others are quite over-the-top. All in all, Jahaan Chaar Yaar rests on a fine concept but fails miserably on account of bad direction.
My rating – ** out of 5!