Imagine being marooned in the middle of Sahara desert with a nearlyempty water bottle. And imagine having to walk your way out of thedesert... with no succour from the blazing overhead sun except for thelil green oases which are too few and too far between... oases thatoffer shade under date palms and pools of cool, clear water sparklingin the sunlight.
Imagine that... and you will know what it feels like to sit through ’Phir Hera Pheri’!
Like a journey through the hot desert sand, it’s a drag!!
’Phir Hera Pheri’is 17 reels of crass, juvenile and sometimes, asinine humour. From thevery beginning, the plot is on a slippery slope and the slide quickensas more and more implausible subplots get thrown into the pot. Whatresults is a hotch potch of gags stitched together in an attempt atslapstick comedy. And the sorry fact is that a lot of these gags arelifted verbatim from ’Hera Pheri. In an attempt to make alaugh-a-minute riot, Neeraj Vora (screenplay/dialogues/direction) endsup with a ’laugh-only-for-a-few-minutes’ riot. The nadir is reachedduring the climax sequence (which incidentally is not the climax scene)that takes place under a circus top. This whole sequence is soembarassingly atrocious that one wonders if Neeraj Vora fell asleepwhile writing it and a deranged monkey completed it for him!
Incase you are still interested in the plot, it’s actually based on thesimple premise that a fool and his money are soon parted. Having’earned’ a fortune in ’Hera Pheri’, the bungling threesome arebusy blowing the cash. Raju (Akshay Kumar), the enterprising of thelot, discovers a ’chit fund’ run by Anuradha (Bipasha Basu) whopromises to double the investment in 21 days. Salivating at theprospect of doubling their riches, Raju persaudes the other two to poolin some cash for the investment. And when he is still short of therequired amount, he ’borrows’ some from a local ’goonda’ Pappu (RajpalYadav) and completes further shortfall by pledging their new house to aParsi gun-collector (Dinesh Hingoo). As it happens, Anuradha shuts shopafter the ’investment’ is made and leaves our incorrigible trio, penniless. With no money left to even buy food and with an assortmentof thugs on their trail to recover their cash, ’Phir Hera Pheri’is all about how Raju, Shyam (Suneil Shetty) and Baburao (Paresh Rawal)go about extricating themselves from the mess they find themselves in!And if you have watched Guy Ritchie’s excellent ’Lock, Stock and TwoSmoking Barrels’, you would know roughly how the plot would develop!
IfI have had nothing but bad things to say about this movie up until thispoint, let me change track and tell you about the talent of one personwho manages to evoke smiles, grins and guffaws with his exceptionalperformance. Paresh Rawal, reprising his role of Baburao GanpatraoApte, tries to save the movie with the sheer might of his performanceand almost succeeds! Arguably, Baburao Apte, will go down in thehistory of Hindi cinema as one of the most memorable comic charactersever. And it is Paresh Rawal’s performance that acts like the oasesthat I’ve mentioned at the start of this review.
Though AkshayKumar hogs a disproportionate amount of screen-time, one does not mindsince his comic timing, though just about adequate, is easy on the eye.Suneil Shetty seems muted in comparison. So if the three leading actorsin the movie form a competent team, then why would the movie turn outso bad?! It’s not as if there isn’t enough comic talent in the cast.There are actors aplenty, with talent like Johnny Lever, Rajpal Yadav, Suresh Menon, Sunil Pal, Dinesh Hingoo, Razzak Khan, etc. wasted in bitparts. But even these bit parts are all about loud, primary-school-boyhumour. So you might as well not bother! The leading ladies (if you can call them that, given the length of their roles), Rimi Sen and Bipasha Basu, play incredulously implausible characters.The only bright spot apart from the leading trio is Sharat Saxena whoplays a ’totla’ don.
There is simply nothing to writeabout the music. The only hum-worthy song gets relegated to the end ofthe movie to play while the credits roll. And it is embarrasing to knowthat I share my name with a lyricist who writes lyrics like "mujhe pyaar ki chatni chata de piya"! Enough said!!
Technically, the movie does not match up to good standards that are commonplace inHindi movies nowadays. The editor could have been much liberal with thescissors. The camerawork is unimaginative. The special effects arechildish at best. And passing off a man in a bad gorilla costume as areal gorilla makes you want to lean on your neighbour’s shoulder andweep!
Watch ’Phir Hera Pheri’ only for appreciatingwhat a gifted actor Paresh Rawal is. I would recommend watching it whenthe DVD is released. The DVD would cost much lesser than what you wouldspend on tickets for a family at a multiplex and it would allow you tozip through the long yawn-inducing intervals in the movie!