Comedy is the most ignored genre in Bollywood. An all out laugh riot is the best way to cheer up a sinking mood.
The list of ’The Five Best Hindi Comedy Movies’ compiled is my personal choice.
Here goes...
- Hera Pheri (2000) directed by Priyadarshan
A one man show. Raju (Akshay Kumar) and Shyam (Sunil Shetty) are paying guests of Babu Rao Apte (Paresh Rawal), who is the owner of Star Garage. Jobless Raju’s mother thinks that her son is very succesful. Shyam has taken a loan from Kharak Singh (Om Puri), and is trying to get his late father’s job in a bank. Gangster Kabeera (Gulshan Grover) kidnaps the grand-daughter of a big industrialist (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) and phones him for ransom. But due to a misprint in the directory, the call reaches Star Garage. Our heroes then decide to take double the ransom and free the child, and keep the rest for themselves. Hilarious stuff.
- Padosan (1968) directed by Jyoti Swaroop
This was Mehmood productions’ first offering. Bhola (Sunil Dutt) has a fight with his mama (Om Prakash) and goes to stay with his mami. His next door ’padosan’ is a beautiful Bindu (Saira Banu) for whom Bhola falls head over heels. Bindu is taught music by a Master Pillai (Mehmood). To win over Bindu, Bhola consults his friend Guru (Kishore Kumar) and his team (Mukri, Keshto Mukherjee). Guru concludes that Bhola must learn singing to win over Bindu. But all efforts to teach Bhola go in vain. Then Guru asks Bhola to lip-sync while he himself sings in the background. The ’Ek Chatur Naar’ song is a laugh riot.
- Angoor (1981) directed by Gulzar
A comedy of errors about two sets of twins. Seperated at birth, the two sets of twins are both named Ashok (Sanjeev Kumar) & Bahadur (Deven Verma). Ashok1 and Bahadur1 are married to Sudha (Moushmi Chatterjee) and Prema (Aruna Irani) respectively. The trouble begins when bachelors Ashok2 & Bahadur2 arrive in the same city & a series of mistaken identity creates a big chaos. Ashok1 has to deal with Sudha’s demand for a necklace and Ashok2 is convinced that there is a gang out to rob him in this alien city. Stellar performances by the lead heroes makes this film a classic.
- Golmaal (1979) directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee
A heart warming romantic comedy. Ramprasad (Amol Palekar) pretends to be a traditional Indian person as he applies for a job with Bhavani Shankar (Utpal Dutt). Things take a drastic turn when Bhavani Shankar chances upon Ramprasad during a football match. Later, Ramprasad coms up with an escape route & says that he must’ve seen his twin, Laxman, who doesn’t sport a moustache. So Ramprasad turns up as Laxman in Bhavani Shankar’s house & gets a job of teaching music to his daughter Urmila (Bindiya Goswamy). After this there is a lot of fun to see Ram alias Laxman running here & there to save his skin. The music is divine with the evergreen track ’Aanewala Pal Jaanewala Hai’.
- Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron (1982) directed by Kundan Shah
A slapstick dark comedy of the highest order. Vinod (Naseeruddin Shah) & Sudhir (Ravi Baswani) are two photographers who have been assigned by Shobha (Bhakti Barve), the editor of a newspaper ’Khabardar’, to spy on builder Tarneja (Pankaj Kapoor). They soon discover that Tarneja and his rival builder Ahuja (Om Puri) are both trying to bribe police commisioner D’mello (Satish Shah) to win a contact for constructing a flyover. D’mello is murdered & his murder is captured on camera but the photo isn’t clear. The only way to prove that D’mello has been murdered is to find his corpse. Thus the chase begins where everyone wants the corpse for different reasons.
As Good As the Rest
Shagird (1967) directed by Samir Ganguly
Andaz Apna Apna (1994) directed by Rajkumar Santoshi
Chhoti Si Baat (1975) directed by Basu Chatterjee
Chupke Chupke (1975) directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee
Pyaar Kiye Jaa (1966) directed by Chitralaya