Hulla is an extremely strange film that leaves you feeling like you’ve entered some alternate universe where only a few of life’s realities are true. If this statement has made you curious, don’t be – Hulla is an awful movie with few redeeming points.

The first half is still passable and if you find yourself to be the unlikely candidate who has won a free pass to the film on a radio contest and missed out on the plastic tiffin box, don’t be disappointed. As long as you promise yourself to drive away as fast as possible from the vicinity of the theater at interval point, you should be fine. The setups are okay. Raj Puri (Sushant Singh) and the Missus move to a burbie colony co-operative after her la-di-dah ‘Malbar’ Hill parents have grudgingly come to terms with their loser stockbroker of a son-in-law, but the apartment is hounded by noise. Whether this is an authentic source of irritation or just Singh’s oversensitive ears, we are never clear. But the whistling watchman begins to get on his nerves. He seeks help from the society secretary Janardhan (Rajat Kapoor) who is having his own issues in life and for some reason keeps taking it out unfairly on his wife who has a single point agenda of someday living in a 2-bedroom house. Janardhan’s track keeps intercutting Puri’s and is off on a different tangent. He is a toy manufacturer/supplier who is facing a slump in his business. His big break arrives when a sleaze-ball offers him a big contract, but wants a 5-star room and girls. Really? This happens in the low-end toy industry. What an eye-opener!

The neighbors are out of a 50’s B-movie and all of them resemble Peter Ustinov on a bad day. They add to the noise with a game of hockey on the terrace, and generally come from a planet of freaks. Puri talks to the cops who laugh at him, Puri tries earplugs that don’t work, Puri writes to the CM and he visits in a surreal dream where Puri gets to gun down Janardhan. It’s just too weird.. You can’t even understand what some of them are saying – take the scene where Puri is in the elevator with the psycho (my observation, not the script’s) Gonsalvez who is essentially talking gibberish. Was this supposed to be funny? You’ll never know. Eventually Gonsalvez goes on to purchase a second hand music system with dynamic baas (baas-yes, intentional-yes, funny-no) boost that makes Puri think he’s in the midst of a natural disaster. Far-fetched. What about the neighbors who move in at 3 am and have a senior citizen who keeps using the Puris’ bed? What the..? The film is an absurd mix of hard realities and pure bullshit.

The director Jaideep Varma makes some unique observations on life in suburban Mumbai and at least these are noteworthy – like the insistence of Maharashtra red-tapism to force your father’s name as your middle name and creating a whole new entity, and like the various type of people who assault you at traffic signals – from booksellers who hawk Booker winners and porn magazines in a single breath to the stereotypical eunuch.

Technically the film rates a negative. Camerawork is mostly handheld and indescribably unimaginative. Art direction is non-existent. Maybe the neighbors did the sound as well. Indian Ocean’s music is lost in the cacophony. Surely, the albom’s better.

Performances are passable. Rajat Kapoor towers over the rest, and Sushant Singh seems out of form. Kartika Rane is a discovery. The cameos are extremely uni-dimensional, but you’ve got to blame the script, not the actors.

Sunil Doshi must be hoping for a repeat of Bheja Fry, but this film lacks cohesiveness and will probably neutralize all the profits Bheja Fry made for the producer. This one’s a dud.