Four Samosas & The Ill-Advised Grocery Store Heist (2022) Movie Drinking Game
Down a Shot: each time a pitiful Sanjay is chided by his future father-in-law.
Down a Shot: for each recurring gag.
Down a Shot: every time the ongoing King Ashoka skit rehearsals make an appearance in the background.
Down a Shot: for each rap battle and song-dance sequence.
Down a Shot: each time Kamala devours entire packets of bhel (it helps her focus).
Down a Shot: each time Preeti comes up with her highly imaginative but ultimately nonsensical heist plots involving explosive rangolis and risky stunts that only make sense in a Bond film.
By: Vidal D’costa (Two Beers) –
Little India’s top rapper and top sari expert Vinny teams up with wannabe Bollywood star and full-time sweet mart employee Zak, a disgruntled IITian named Kamala, and Preeti, the chirpy journalist/editor of Little India’s only newspaper, in order to pull off a heist of epic proportions to win back the love of his life, Rina, who is engaged to be married to Sanjay from Ludhiana, the self-proclaimed GOAT of goat shit. Along the way, Vinny also enlists a rival group of Indian American youth who are hellbent on creating their own fifty-first state in their little suburb. Will the titular four samosas succeed in this quest… or die trying? (Just kidding about that last part. Nobody dies).
A Toast
Writer and director Ravi Kapoor plates up a movie that’s an endlessly enjoyable, ludicrous, and funny madcap adventure from start to finish. There are definitely moments in it that feel like an homage to all those quirky underdog ensemble comedies that were all the rage back in the early 2000s (think Eagle vs Shark, Hot Rod, Napoleon Dynamite, so on and so forth) and the movie also hits the nail in the head with its visuals as well as its endearing and goofball-ish but at times flawed characters.
The heist elements, too, veer more towards mimicking Priyadarshan’s beloved Hera Pheri franchise rather than the West’s Oceans 11 franchise, whether intentionally or not, which adds an extra bit of that ‘desi tadka’, and this is yet another factor that works in favour of the movie.
I even savoured the absolutely hysterical manner in which it not so subtly took the piss out of over-the-top mainstream Bollywood fare/masala films. There’s plenty of belly laughs to be had, but also quite a few cleverly incorporated recurring gags such as Vinny’s uncontrollable urge to return an object to its original position especially after he’s begrudgingly knocked it over (typical Indian values, innit?). This will later be utilised in a pivotal emotional encounter with his estranged father.
The cast all seem to have had the time of their lives enacting the various lively and cringe comedy-packed scenarios at their disposal and have a dynamic that had me rooting for each of their goals, no matter the futile payoffs. Despite not being marketed as a social commentary, the themes and personal struggles of the characters in Four Samosas will definitely resonate with viewers- be it Vinny’s efforts to rebuild his relationship with ex girlfriend Rina or with his own dad (a local pujari, or priest, who chose religion over his own son and wife) or an ambitious but unemployed Kamala’s vindictive views towards immigration.
Karan Soni as Sanjay and Meera Simhan as Kamala particularly stood out among the cast with their spot-on comic timing and regardless of whether Sanjay is a giant douche nozzle or not, I couldn’t help feeling sympathetic towards this character every time his future father-in-law admonished him.
Beer Two
My only qualm with this movie is that despite the striking visuals, it also suffers from that weird urge of most Indian American filmmakers to overly douse the visuals in a blinding orange tinge which make it look slightly dated (a similar issue faced by early 2000s offerings such as Meera Syal’s big screen adaptation of Anita and Me).
Verdict
Four Samosas may not be the freshest offering, but it’s certainly not to be disposed off in the frozen section either. It may not be everybody’s choice of snack with their evening cup of chai, but if you’re into quirky comedies that are high on silliness while also paying homage to the genre itself in a desi way, then this delectable flick is not to be missed!
