Mickey Virus Film
Faustina Bartsch
Mickey Virus is a 2013 Indian Hindi-language Comedy thriller film, written & directed by Saurabh Varma[2] and produced by DAR Motion Pictures in association with Trilogic Digital Media Limited & Awesome Films Pvt. Ltd. The film stars Manish Paul, Elli Avram, Manish Choudhary, Puja Gupta, and Varun Badola in the lead roles.[3] The film, despite receiving positive reviews, was a flop at the box-office.[4][5]
When two hackers are murdered in Delhi, the Delhi Police suspect that the case revolves around hacking. They begin their search to find a computer hacker who can help them crack this case. The head of the police team, ACP Siddhanth, accompanied by Inspector Bhalla, stumbles across Mickey Arora, a lazy but smart hacker who runs a grocery store during the day and creates viruses for anti-virus companies at night, along with his friends, the tomboy Chutney, Floppy, Pancho, and Professor, who assist him in all odd jobs.
The film was shot in New Delhi, including in office complex of Nehru Place.[7] Several Bollywood biggies like Salman Khan, Madhuri Dixit, Ranbir Kapoor, Anil Kapoor and Karan Johar were featured in a promotional video of Mickey Virus.[8] The movie has come under the scanner of Governmental Agencies as it displays techniques of high-profile robbery which might spur reel to real life robbery incidents.[9] Elli Avram is also one of the contestants of Bigg Boss 7.[10] She would be inside the House of Bigg Boss, cut off from the outside world at the time of Movie Release, making it a first of its kind Bollywood Debut.[11][12][13] Mickey Virus is made on a budget of Rs. 110 million, which includes publicity and advertising, and it was released in 1,200 screens in India.[14] Chances are that the film will be remade in Tamil and Telugu.[15]
The Soundtrack was released on 3 October 2013 on the digital music platform iTunes. The album consists of six tracks and the only one of them by Faizan Hussain & Agnel Roman, Manoj Yadav and Arun Kumar writing the lyrics.[6][16]
Mickey Virus was promoted by Manish Paul in Bigg Boss on Colors. A promotional clip of Mickey Virus featured Salman Khan, Ranbir Kapoor, Anil Kapoor, Madhuri Dixit Nene, Farah Khan, Karan Johar, Remo D'souza, Kapil Sharma, either dishing out funny one-liners or abusing Mickey.[17][18] Lauren Gottlieb, Drashti Dhami, Jeetendra and Manish's TV friends Vahbbiz Dorabjee, Vivian Dsena attended the special screening of Mickey Virus.[19][20]
Mickey Virus received positive to mixed reviews.[4][21] Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave it 3 out of 5 stars, finding the thriller to be engaging for younger viewers.[22] Madhureeta Mukherjee of Times of India gave it 3 out of 5 stars.[23] Mohar Basu of Koimoi gave it 2.5 out of 5 stars.[24] Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN gave it 2 out of 5 stars, criticizing the length and engagement.[25] Faheem Ruhani of India Today gave it 3 out of 5 stars.[26] Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV gave it 2.5 out of 5 stars.[27] Tushar Joshi of DNA gave it 2.5 stars.[28] Shubhra Gupta of Indian Express gave it 2 stars.[29] Sanjukta sharma of Livemint did not give a rating, but found the film to have a weak plot and premise.[30] Anupama Chopra gave it 2 stars.[31] Zee News gave it 3.5 stars.[32] Nikhil Arora of DesiMartini gave it 2 stars.[33]
Meet Mickey Arora (Manish Paul), a skilled hacker who prances around in bright T-shirts with quirky slogans, brighter sneakers and a spiky hairdo. He is a lazy lad, who likes to access restricted or guarded systems and thinks it's funny to install viruses into computers. He does by writing very little programming code. A smooth operator of the virtual world, he hits a rough patch when he is caught in a predicament which requires him to turn into an investigator overnight.
Mickey Virus tries too hard to be cool. There is fun typography and graphics, characters dressed like they are models for the T-shirt brand Threadless and a sound design which draws from the sounds often heard on computers. But in director Saurabh Varma's obsession with making the computer world fun and up-to-date, he forgets the need to tell a story well. As a result, the supporting characters only have interesting names - Floppy, Chutney and Pancho - and nothing else. There's a whodunit about which viewers couldn't care less and a long climax in which the criminal conspiracy is explained much like a drab computer lesson
As the eponymous hero of the film, Paul gets to do everything in the film but dance. (Though there's a little jig in the opening song.) But Mickey Virus isn't the launch pad that showcases his comic timing or his good screen presence. Paul is let down by a poor script which is bereft of humour and a sense of genuine thrill. Elli Avram, currently stuck in the Bigg Boss house in Lonavala, has even little to do here other than be the object of Mickey's desire. So little that her voice is dubbed and she does a bizarre dance in a mini skirt as part of a dream sequence.
As a viewer, the only time we were moved was when an iPad was destroyed in a fight sequence. That's not a good sign for a film in which the humans are the real heroes.
Published By: AtMigration Published On: Oct 26, 2013--- ENDS ---