Bollywood Preview - Direct Dil Se: Mickey Virus

Casts: Manish Paul, Elli Avram, Puja Gupta

Banner: Dar Motion Pictures and Trilogic Digital Media Limited & Awesome Films Pvt. Ltd.

Director: Saurabh Varma

Producer: Arun Rangachari, Vivek Rangachari

Writers: Saurabh Varma

Music: Hanif Shaikh

Running Time: 2 hours 10 mins

Release Date: 25th Oct 2013

Story line: Mickey Virus is a comic thriller set in Delhi, India. When Delhi Police comes across a case revolving around hacking, they begin their search to find a computer hacker who can help them crack this case. The head of the police team ACP Siddhanth (Manish Choudhary), stumbles across Mickey Arora (Manish Paul), a lazy but street smart hacker who can actually help them solve the case. Mickey runs a grocery store in day time and creates virus's for anti virus companies in the night along with his Tom boy friend Chutney (Puja Gupta) who always helps him out in all odd jobs. He is also head over heals in love with a character he has created in his game called "Kung Fu Chameli" and will do anything to get out of hard work to do whatever he wants to do. Little does he know that ACP Siddhanth accompanied by Inspector Bhalla (Varun Badola) are tough nuts to crack.

Know more about the captain of the Ship, the director: Saurabh Varma has 15 years active film industry experience in areas of Film Production, Filmed Marketing, Film Distribution, Film Programming, Content Acquisition, Online Development, Graphic Designing, Advertising, Cinema Management, Movie Promotions, Strategy Development, Developing Film, Production, Cinema Process & Systems, Cinema Tactical Marketing, Brand Building, Cinema Launch, Corporate Communications, PR, Event Management, Visual Merchandising, Merchandise Development.

Have worked in projects in almost all Indian languages including English (Worked with WB/Sony/Fox & Paramount), Hindi (Sheb, Biwi aur Gangster etc), Tamil (Yaavaram Nallum), Telugu (Saleem), Punjabi (Mera Pind), Gujarati (Dholi Taro Dhol Waaje), Bengali (Rituparno Ghosh & Buddhadev Das Gupta projects), Marathi (Amol Palekar's Samaantar) and Malayalam (Shaji Karun's Kutty Srank) language.

Worked as Chief Operatingv Officer, Serendipity Films, Hinduja Group; Worked as Chief Marketing Officer, Reliance BIG Pictures; Worked as Vice President Distribution, Programming & Mktg, INOX Leisure Ltd; Worked as Vice President Marketing, PVR Cinemas & PVR Pictures; Distributed films of EROS International in West Bengal

Facts And Figures:

• The film was shot in New Delhi, including in office complex of Nehru Place. Several Bollywood biggies like Salman Khan, Madhuri Dixit, Ranbir Kapoor, Anil Kapoor and Karan Johar featured in a promotional video of Mickey Virus. The Movie has come under the scanner of Governmental Agencies as it displays techniques of high profile robbery which might spur reel to real life robbery incidents

• Elli Avram is also one of the contestants of Bigg Boss 7. She would be inside the House of Bigg Boss, cut-off from the outside world at the time of Movie Release, making it a first of its kind Bollywood Debut

Film Budget is 8 crore.

My Gut Feel and comments:

My first reaction after seeing the promo of mickey virus is that this movie has feel good factor like Vicky Donar. Although its Saurabh Varma’s debut movie as director however it looks like he manage to pull out a decent film with appealing entertainment value. I am anticipating a good movie and as the budget it moderate chances of box office success increases. I would give this movie 3 out of 5 stars, five days before the release.