Welcome To New York could have been a good film but ended up as a badly written and childishly executed flick. The cast is good as per the story but the story isn’t good as per the cast and that’s one of the reasons that the only people laughing in the cinemas were kids as the elderly wanted the film to be over as soon as possible.

The story takes place alongside IIFA Awards where Sophie (Lara Dutta) wants to teach her boss Gary (Boman Irani) a lesson and judges the worst contenders in a nationwide competition as winners. The two – wannabe actor-turned-recovery agent Teji and fashion designer Jinal (Diljit Dosanjh and Sonakshi Sinha) reach New York to fulfill their biggest dream without knowing that they are pawns in a much bigger game. Add the kidnapping of Karan Johar by Karan Johar (or Arjun!) and you get a film that could have been great like The Great Gambler but sadly, in inexperienced hands of Chakri Toleti, it fell flat even before it reached the intermission.

Despite cameos from Salman Khan, Rana Daggubati, Aditya Roy Kapur and Sushant Singh Rajput, the film belongs to Karan Johar who plays both Karan and Arjun. However, even his fan following wasn’t able to make the film a hit and it went downwards as expected. Riteish Deshmukh plays himself but isn’t able to add value due to a script that could have been a contender, but wasn’t. With so many actors around and an opportunity like shooting on the sidelines of IIFA, the film couldn’t do well and it must be taken as a lesson. •