'Vir Das Full Volume' Netflix Review: Not All The Jokes Land, But This Comedy Special Still Works

I am gonna talk about Vir Das’ latest Netflix comedy special, titled Full Volume, but first, a little bit of context. In 2022, the comedian found himself in legal trouble with the Mumbai police. An FIR was launched against him, Netflix, and some others by one Ashwin Gidwani, who was a producer. Das did a show for Gidwani back in 2010; it was aptly titled History of India VIRitten. The charges against him were that he copied some of the content from that show in one of his Netflix shows, which aired much later. Cut to now—Das, in his recent comedy special, extensively talks about the experience. He practically had to explain the fundamentals of how jokes work—starting with undeniable facts, then the premise, and then the punchline. He had to explain that he took the undeniable fact from one of his own jokes, then changed the premise and did the punchline accordingly. Das’ example to the police officer, as he tells us now, was not quite child friendly. The fact he spewed was about female private organs—not all of them are of the same size. In one of the examples, he compared those with India and Pakistan, then reached the climax with how these two countries used to be close but grew apart over time, just like those women’s body parts. In the other example, he replaced it with Indian politics. The punchline for this one was the right one was more sensitive than the other. Das says how the joke is easier to explain to a comedy audience but not at all to an investigating officer from Mumbai police. He did turn the tide against him by the act of self-trolling, and now we are here.

The reason I brought this up before everything is that Das’ current show is more reflective than comedic. It is majorly about his experience as a brown comedian who does comedy in the English language, rather than him actually telling jokes. Quite naturally, I wouldn’t associate the term funny to describe Full Volume. The best you get is a few chuckles here and there. And that’s completely okay, I would say. This is 2025, and if you expect to laugh like a maniac from a Netflix comedy special, then the joke is on you. In case you’re wondering, I’m not being sarcastic here; I actually mean it. Comedy, in a broader sense, is not only about laughter. Introspection and self-reflection are a big part of it. That said, Das’ set is not as cohesive as it should be. Well, I would say sets because what you see on Netflix is actually a product of three of Das’ shows—one in London, one in New York, and one in Mumbai. The narrative intercuts between all three, trying to provide you a seamless experience, and it mostly succeeds. But the issue is, sometimes Das appears so full of himself that it gets to be a bit too much. Now his die-hard fans are not going to have any issue with that, I suppose. I may not be one of them, but I do like his brand of comedy, ever since I had my first tryst with the man in that cult caper film Delhi Belly (2011). Das has only become more fearless and politically relevant over the years, and his brand of comedy is certainly the kind of thing I dig.

I am still talking about Full Volume, by the way. This is a personal show. Sure, every stand-up by every comedian is personal, but Das has an interesting story here. By virtue of whatever the performing artist is saying on stage being true (and not for the show), Das had a huge scare with his voice. It stopped working, and he was unable to speak for a while. We get some footage, and it’s futile to discuss whether those were real or all for the show. However, the story of him getting his voice back makes one of the best jokes of this set. It came back when a food delivery guy handed him his Kung Pao Chicken, and Das instinctively said thanks and hugged the guy, who thought Das was a man crazy about that Chinese dish. 

There are a handful of things that Vir Das attempts to do here in order to make people laugh that don’t quite land. Like the gun violence dig at the Americans—the joke was good, but it overstayed its welcome. Had Das trimmed things a bit, this would have been perfect. The same goes for the therapist joke where the therapist never takes a sip from the chamomile tea—another good joke that got spoiled by Das’ overdoing. Anyway, I trust that you get the drift, so I am going to shift the focus on the good now. The second-best joke by Das has to be one he throws at the Brits for stealing Kohinoor. And the pick of the lot—when he talks about nothing good happening in India post 2019 and then retracts that he was just talking about Marvel movies. We all know what he was talking about. Like the comedian, I also don’t think I should say it out loud.

It’s really hard to talk about Vir Das: Full Volume without getting spoilery. And also because I genuinely want you to check it out. It has its fair share of flaws, but a whole lot of political and cultural relevance in the context of the world we live in. Das is a comedian, which has always been a tricky thing when it comes to the authorities of our country. In his latest comedy special, he has only proven that further. And I couldn’t be happier about it, personally speaking.