Comedy movies have been very common in Bollywood since the past several decades, where the main theme of the movie was only focused on comedy.No doubt, Bollywood since the early 40’s and 50’s had a lot of comedy in most of the movies, besides drama, emotions, action, song, dance, etc.But, mainly since the 80’s or 90’s, since the superhit duo of ***David Dhawan-*** Govinda coming together, comedy had taken a different phase altogether. Filmmakers then began focusing on comedy themed movies which led to a new creation altogether. Here is a movie which focuses on comedy and challenges the viewer at the same time that they would fail in trying to hold their laughter. ***Plot :-*** ***Baburao Ganpatrao Apte(Paresh Rawal)*** owns a car garage named ***’Star Garage’***. He barely manages to make a decent living through it but with the hassles of his clients and his tenant ***Raju(Akshay Kumar)*** who has been living in his house for quite a while.Raju is a fun loving guy who warns to earn easy money and at the same time, fools/cheats his mother into beleiving that he works in a big company.Then enters ***Shyam(Sunil Shetty)***who has just moved into Mumbai to earn a living as well as badly needs money for his friend ***Khadak Singh’s(Om Puri)***sister’s marriage.Baburao allows him to stay in the house, but Shyam fails to get along with Raju, who initially creates a lot of problems by becoming a hurdle in his life and career.A comedy of sorts is displayed initially as the three live with each other. However, Shyam has a soft corner for ***Anuradha Panicker(Tabu)*** who initially competes for the post of the same office job as Shyam. One day, disaster cum luck strikes for the trio-Baburao, Raju and Shyam, as a call from a dreaded criminal named ***Kabira(Gulshan Grover)***comes and demands a ransom of Rs 10 lakhs to free a little girl, whom he thinks is their granddaughter.The main reason causing this confusion is since the number on the telephone directory of ’Star Garage’ and ***’Star Fisheries’***, the granddaughter of its owner***, Mr Deviprasad(Kulbhushan Kharbandaa)*** who has been kidnapped, has been interchanged. The three decide to use this for their advantage as a means of getting a good ransom, to secure their future.They then decide to pose as kidnappers and call Mr Deviprasad to hand over Rs 20 lakhs to release his granddaughter.Mr Deviprasad agrees and later they call him again to finalise the location of handing over the money in exchange for the little girl.
As expected, a comedy of error occurs as they implement their plan and barely escape getting caught by the police.Despite the failure, Raju is still insistent on continuing with their plan in order to rescue the little child and get money in exchange.Kabira now calls them and tells them to get double the amount or Rs 20 lakhs and they decide to ask Deviprasad for Rs 40 lakhs to release the child.Now, the question is "Will Baburao, Shyam and Raju be successful in getting the lumpsum amount and rescuing the child in order to secure their future as they badly needed or will it end up in another drastic failure, forcing them to lose even whatever little they have"???
**Direction /Performances :-**
Director ***Priyadarshan***, already famous down South, in the Malayalam film industry, now ventured into Bollywood through this film, which is a remake of the Malayalam hit film ’***Ramji Rao speaking***’. He somehow managed to get the perfect cast to play the lead roles and the performances by all the actors was great.
Comedy, the theme element of this movie was put into its best use, Paresh Rawal, the long playing baddie of Bollywood finally takes a different turn and lands up in comedy, which seems as good or justifying as in his villainous roles.In fact, much of the acclaim went to him for his excellent comic timing.His portrayal of Baburao Apte, a typical old garage owner with a life full of hassles was done with ease, which in turn won him several awards.
Next, Akshay Kumar, playing a happy go lucky Raju too was done well.He has played similar kind of roles in his earlier movies and so his performance on that basis was not noteworthy.Sunil Shetty too carries off comedy with ease besides a angry young action hero. Tabu had a small role to play as a small town girl and was OK. Kulbhushan Kharbandaa too fitted well with the role of the billionaire owner/grandfather.Gulshan Grover looked convincing in the role of the kidnapper Kabira.
Other performances such as that of Om Puri as Khadak Singh, Mukesh Khanna(also known as Shaktiman) as the ACP, Asrani as Bank Manager, Razak Khan and Kashmira Shah were OK.
Music :-
The music seems quite a mix of different types and is quite good and would keep one’s ears tuned to it.The tracks include ’Denewala Jab bhi deta’ , ’Jab Bhi Koi Haseena’, ’Tuk Tunak Tun’(Special appearance by Namrata Shirodkar) , ’Main Ladki’ and ’Humbalila’.K.K, Abhijeet, Vinod Rathod, Udit Narayan, Richa Sharma, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Alka Yagnik and Hariharan lent their voices for the songs.
Awards and Nominations :-
Hera Pheri had won several awards as well as nominations.Paresh Rawal won the Filmfare Best Comedian Award, along with IIFA and Star Screen Award in the same category.Akshay Kumar won the award for the best supporting actor and Sunil Shetty was nominated for the same.