Honsla Rakh(Punjabi, Amazon Prime Video)

Starring Diljit Dosanjh, Sonam Bajwa, Shehnaaz Gill, Shinda Grewal

Directed by Amarjit Singh

Rating: ***

Admittedly Diljit Dosanjh’s comic timing is getting better with every film.In his new LOL outing he plays a shameful slacker who tries to palm off his motherless son to an adoptive couple(but then conveniently has a change of heart) , who stalks the heroine and thrusts his phone number on her when she clearly tell him she is not interested(but later, again conveniently,falls in love with the stalker) and who insists that his son call him ‘Brother’ in his school.

All this in another hero and another film would not only be highly inappropriate, it would also be immensely annoying. Single father Yanky Singh—yes, that’s Diljit’s name in the film—is not the kind of neighbour I would like , specially in Vancouver where the plot unfolds.

Diljit gamely settles into Yanky’s hairbrained world, yanking Yankee out of his despicable deeds to actually make him a likeable slacker.

Yes, Dilijit is quite an entertaining actor. But here is the thing: his 7-year old co-star Shinda Grewal who plays his son , steals every scene from under Diljit’s nose. The boy is an absolute natural and the only durable factor in this slippery factory of farcical feelgood feats.The way he puts his screen-dad in his place, has to be seen to be believed.

If Honsla Rakh was without Shinda, it would have been just a routine comedy trying to generate laughs from baby poo.
Shinda apart Honsla Rakh is the kind of tactless comedy which got its title first and the decided to build a story around a child called Honsla who is abandoned by his biological mother(get it?).The mother, played by Shehnaaz Gill , is even more daft than the father(if that is possible).

In a prolonged flashback at an airport(where the child Honsla conveniently disappears) we get to know that Honsla’s mom Sweety was very upset when she got pregnant , as she saw it as the end of her dreams(did no one tell her about protection?).

“This(pregnancy) is Nature’s gift,” Diljit consoles her.

Daft, goofy and simply dimwitted Honsla Rakh is likeable because it doesn’t strive to be highbrow.