It's safe to say that French Biriyani works best as a tribute to the cosmopolitan city of Bengaluru over all else. As someone who has lived in the city for many years, I was able to catch most of the inside jokes easily. That said, one out of every five or six jokes in French Biriyani directed by Pannaga Bharana, was packed with sexual innuendos. The story, as the makers would want it, is a giant comedy of errors. Absurdity permeates through every character and proves to be the film's soul.
Danish Sait, as autorickshaw driver Asgar, was spot on in his body language and accent. He seems well on his way to becoming Kannada cinema's Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat, Bruno, The Dictator), carving out a niche of his own in comedy. The same can be said for Sal Yusuf, who I've seen in minor roles in quite a few Malayalam films in the last decade. Rangayana Raghu, as police officer Mahadev, and Michael Madhu as don Powder Charles, also amp up the absurd comedy quotient. There's also a subplot about child conception that's both laugh-worthy and farcical.
On the flip side, not all jokes land well, even if you exclude the double entendres. The songs, while not too out-of-place, aren't hummable. Also, as the film makes its way to the climax that fittingly takes place at the "Climax Theatre", there's so much chaos happening that you stop caring about the outcome of it all. More so because the scripting isn't as effective.
