“Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video,” released on October 11, 2024, directed by Raaj Shaandilyaa and produced by T-Series Films, Balaji Motion Pictures, Wakaoo Films, and Kathavachak Films, promised a nostalgic ’90s comedy with Rajkummar Rao and Triptii Dimri in the lead. Instead, it delivers a tiresome, poorly executed mess overshadowed by its own hype. The film is a slog that squanders its cast and premise with juvenile humor and a disjointed script.

Set in 1997 Rishikesh, the plot follows Vicky (Rao), a mehndi artist, and Vidya (Dimri), a doctor, who marry and record an intimate video on their Goa honeymoon—only for it to be stolen during a burglary, alongside their CD player and an ancestral sword. What could’ve been a sharp comedy of errors spirals into a convoluted goose chase involving a bumbling cop (Vijay Raaz), Vicky’s flirtatious sister Chanda (Mallika Sherawat), and a parade of pointless characters. The film’s 152-minute runtime feels like an eternity, dragging through forced gags, a bizarre “Stree” spoof, and a preachy climax about privacy and women’s dignity that lands like a sledgehammer on an already broken narrative.

Rajkummar Rao, riding high from “Stree 2,” is the only flicker of competence, landing a few one-liners with his trademark wit—like “Shaadi karke biwi laaya hoon ya Ajay Devgn”—but even he can’t salvage this sinking ship. Triptii Dimri, billed as Bollywood’s next big thing post-“Animal,” is utterly wasted, her Vidya a blank slate with no depth or spark. Their chemistry, hyped in trailers, fizzles on screen, buried under a script that doesn’t know what to do with them. Vijay Raaz and Mallika Sherawat inject fleeting energy—her vampish Chanda a rare highlight—but they’re drowned in a sea of mediocrity. The ensemble, including Tiku Talsania and Mukesh Tiwari, is reduced to caricature, their talents squandered on half-baked roles.

Shaandilyaa, once celebrated for “Dream Girl,” seems to have lost his touch. The first half teases a laugh riot with snappy dialogue, but it’s a bait-and-switch—the second half collapses into a tonal mishmash of crime, ghost cameos, and moralizing that feels tacked on. The screenplay, co-written with Yusuf Ali Khan, Ishrat Khan, and Rajan Agarwal, is a sloppy patchwork, wasting time on irrelevant detours like a flea market hunt or a cop’s romance subplot. Aseem Mishra’s cinematography tries to evoke ’90s nostalgia, but the over-saturated visuals clash with Hitesh Sonik’s grating score and Sachin-Jigar’s forgettable songs—“Mere Mehboob” aside, they’re just noise.

“Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video” is a relic that doesn’t earn its nostalgia or its laughs. It’s a lazy, overstuffed comedy that insults its audience’s patience and its actors’ potential—a video you’ll wish stayed lost.

Rating: 2/5

A torturous misstep—skip it unless you’re desperate for background noise.