It’s 1997, an era when home entertainment equalled recording all kinds of stuff– beach vacays, birthdays, and ahem, X-rated activities– on handheld video cameras, and playing them back on personal VHS machines.

On their ‘shaadi ki first-night’, nudge-wink, Vicky (Rao) and Vidya (Dimri) record their ‘voh wala video’, the loss of which propels the film into motion. Given the director’s track record with his Ayushmann Khurrana-led ‘Dream Girl’ films, in which he mixed soft-core raunch with family drama with a degree of success, it would have been foolish to expect anything else.

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Basically ‘Vicky Vidya’ is more of the same, except that mix which elicited a degree of laughter has dwindled to a few stray chuckles. Small-town India with their repressed young couples getting it on has been milked dry, and the challenge is real: where will you find the laughs? Out come the risible-cheap jokes which land with a thump, and exactly five lines which will make you crack a smile.

The first half of this slack enterprise, fronted by this year’s most successful actor Rajkummar Rao, depends once again on his everyman appeal: mehendi-wala Vicky spirits his dulhaniya, doctorni Vidya, away to an illicit honeymoon in Goa, where he sports a printed shirt, and she dons a red nightie, and, well, you know what happens next.

I honestly did wait for the laughs. This had the potential to be a low-stakes comedy central riot primarily because of its cast. Rao has had much practice– too much, if you ask me– when it comes to doing small-town young men who disarm you with their self-effacing charm, and can handle a crack or two against themselves. The gorgeous Dimri is turning into an actor who is confidently pretty much herself, even if flighty comedy is still not an exact fit for her. Vijay Raaz has the capacity to turn anything into a joke, even when he is in the most awful wig known to mankind. And Mallika Sherawat, who knows a thing or two about being sexy and funny, is back after a long-ish gap.

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But the writing is so sluggish, and the lines are so tired (how long will the mention of piles continue to elicit laughter?) that things start to warm up only after we’ve cringed and yawned through two-thirds of it, when random thieves and cons join the gang in search of that voh-wala-video, which of course, we never really see play out, because of course, this is a ‘family film’. Ashwini Kalsekar is wasted in a bit part. Tiku Talsania is never given a chance not to be annoying. And poor Archana Puran Singh spends the movie with her mouth stuffed with paan masala. No gain, all pain.

It would seem that even the filmmakers, including the lead, weren’t quite sure of their product. Because, mild spoiler alert when in doubt, pull ‘Stree’ out? A ‘bhootni’ pops up in a climactic set-piece, referencing Rao’s most popular film : will he ever be able to get rid of her?

Vicky Vidya Ka Voh Wala Video Director – Raaj Shaandilyaa Cast – Rajkummar Rao, Tripti Dimri, Mallika Sherawat, Vijay Raaz, Archana Puran Singh, Tiku Talsania, Ashwini Kalsekar Rating – 1.5/5