Nothing is more annoying than being stuck on 99, where only one run can bring you glory or the lack of it can make all your hard work seem like a misuse. The Laurel and Hardy of this Friday’s release 99 are stuck in a similar situation. The world is their playing field, and cheat is their game.

The year is 1999. Sachin ( Kunal Khemu ) and Zaramud ( Cyrus Broacha ) are the Laurel and Hardy of our tale. They make fake SIM cards and are sucked into a bigger mess when they steal and crash a gangster’s Mercedes while running away from cops. To save their skin, the duos are forced to work for the gang lord AGM (Mahesh Manjrekar), who is a bookie and has a long list of people to recover his money from. In the list is Rahul (Boman Irani), a gambling addict always looking for ‘signs’ and ‘signals’ as favorable or unfavorable omens to bet or gamble his money, if he has any.

AGM sends Laurel and Hardy to Delhi to recover money from Rahul. Before the duos go about their grimy job, Laurel loses his heart to Pooja (Soha Ali Khan). Not just this, the two criminals also end up losing the money they powerfully recover from Rahul. Thereafter, begins a mad chase, where Laurel faces robust goons with fists and kicks, while the barrel of a Hardy spends most of his time in toilet, unloading himself of the butter chicken of previous night.

Gags are packed abundantly as the trio of Sachin, Zaramud and Rahul play the biggest gamble of their lives, hoping to strike a century. Will luck favour them? Or will they remain stuck on 99?

The director duo of Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K. must be lauded for making a lusciously delightful movie with plenty funny moments. The humour in the film – expressed in situations and crunchy dialogues – is not of the kind we see in typical Bollywood no-brainers. At times it’s witty, at times pure funny side. Note that sequence about Delhi being a strange city where girls are either named Pooja or Neha, where it’s cold in March, where spoiled brats play loud music in cars, and where everyone is out to steal your things. All these things actually emerge in the unraveling of the plot.

Though the pace of the movie slow at few places, the performances by the cast keeps you hooked for most part of the movie. Kunal Khemu is completely at ease playing his character while Cyrus Broacha goes over the top a few times. Boman Irani gets the meatiest role in the movie and he slips credibly into his character of an employee in a forex firm whose wife has left him because of his gambling habit. Soha Ali Khan has a brief role and she plays it well. Mahesh Manjrekar is a delight to watch.

The most astonishing of the lot is an actor named Amit Mistry who plays a pint-sized goon out to recover his money from Rahul. There’s also an impactful cameo by Vinod Khanna, as a cricket match fixer.

The film’s music and cinematography are top quality and not once do they hamper the story’s flow.

With its tight script, fine performances and lusciously different story, ‘99’ turns out to be a total paisa vasool movie not just for its characters but also for audiences.