New Delhi, Jan. 16 -- I wonder if Vir Das was a fan of Scrubs. So much in Happy Patel reminded me of Zach Braff's sitcom: the cutaways and inserts, the sheer number of throwaway gags, the gravitation towards sweetness and light. This sort of busy, packed, self-aware comedy has a robust tradition in American film and TV. But we don't see it much in India-which makes Happy Patel a bit of a curiosity, as foreign-returned as its protagonist.

The film opens with two British agents carrying out an extraction in Goa, which goes terribly wrong when local don Mario (Aamir Khan, this film's producer, enjoying himself a little too much) crashes the party. They just about survive, taking with them Happy, the baby son of their domestic worker, who's ...