New Delhi, April 13 -- Five skinny dudes turn up at the Alappuzha gym and announce that they want to learn boxing. The man at the desk says, that'll be a thousand in advance, plus monthly fees. The boys murmur about not being able to afford it. Fine, the official says, how about 300? There's a chorus of assent, but one of them hopefully asks, EMI?

They say you shouldn't put a hat on a hat, place a joke on top of another. Khalid Rahman's Malayalam film Alappuzha Gymkhana is the exception to this rule. There are jokes within jokes, jokes appended to jokes, jokes hanging off other jokes like the last commuter on a packed bus. And it all works. This is a slacker comedy that's works hard, a babbling stream of slapstick, non sequiturs, sight g...