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Unfortunately, I’m not on team Kunal Khemu. I used to be, when I thought of him as an actor who didn’t get his due. However, his directorial debut, Madgaon Express (2024), changed that. Laced with typical “boys-will-be-boys” silliness, I found myself drifting off during many points of the inanity that was unfolding on screen. It needs a special kind of wit and sorcery to keep people invested in a film where nothing truly matters but the makers’ whimsy. Then I heard his views on pay parity, on his wife Soha Ali Khan’s podcast, and he didn’t seem all that wise. It’s futile to assume the above instances wouldn’t colour my perspective of his directorial venture, Vibe, a film he has also co-produced, and is starring in. But for the sake of fairness, I have to concede that there are few things more effortless in Hindi cinema than Khemu enacting a gag he wrote.

Hardik (Khemu, named after his Go Goa Gone character) is slacking his way through life. Recently out of rehab, after being admitted at the insistence of his brother-like friend Bhagirath (Sparsh Shrivastava), Hardik has a job waiting for him. Bhagirath or ‘Bugs’ is a straight-A friend, always watching over him, sending him money, worried about his........

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