Thanks to MNT!. Review on Hera Pheri (2000)

Managed to find a DVD mail order that includes Hindi Films and so am now able to catch up on them a bit more often than I was before. After catching up on several recommendations from friends and family decided to pick one which was rated by the site that I use and since I wanted a comedy I ended up with Hera Pheri.

Can say categorically that I was not disappointed with my choice. I found it to be a good fun entertainer that delivered in terms on the comedy and was not too bad on the story too.

The basic premise centres around a garage owner Baburao (Paresh Rawal) whose number is listed incorrectly in the local telephone directory. As a results he gets a lot of wrong numbers for a certain Devi Prasad. (The way that the calls are dealt with are quite funny and remind me of some of the wrong numbers that we used to get). Baburao's two room mates are Shyam (Suneil Shetty) and Raj (Akshay Kumar).

Shyam has recently arrived to stake a claim to he deceased fathers bank job for which is already taken by Anuradha (Tabu). Shyam has taken a lot of loans in order to move to the city and try and get this job and is willing to go to large lengths to remove Tabu from the job that he wants, however on finding out that Tabu circumstances are far from ideal he changes his mind and is now in debt.

Raj on the other hand is essentially a con man, always looking to make money the easy way. Then one day his prayers are answered when they receive a call from some kidnappers asking them for a ransom for Devi Prasad's grand - daughter and a plan for double crossing both the kidnappers and Devi Prasad is born.

Are they succesful, do Raj and Shyam find love, do they sing around trees with seven costume changes - well you will have to go and see the film.

The first half of the film is the best half where all the protagonists meet. There is a nice interplay between the main three characters and the jokes are mainly situational and are very funny. The kidnappers are fairly clueless individuals and are never particularly threatening. There are a number of subplots which involve Amrish Puri as a Sikh from Shyam's village who has lent him the money to go to the city and who now wants it back as well as the police.

This leads to a massive showdown between the kidnappers, the police, our three protagonists, the kidnapped girl and Amrish Puri and a band of sikh villagers. This could have lead to a finale to rival the end of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro but infortunately the comedy dies out in the second half and it starts resembling a bad action movie with good hearted heros save the day.

The pace of the film that is so good in the first half slows down and the film is atleast a half hour longer than it needs to be. But then most Hindi Films are. I originally rented it because it had Kader Khan in it and he is one of the funniest men on the indian screen. Unfortunately as his role as Devi Prasad he has no comedy implications at all and that was a real shame as this film really had some good comedy potential without it being too low brow.

The songs in the film were pretty dire and were not needed at all. I fast forwarded them all and indeed they made no difference to the film and the film would in my opinion have flowed much better if they had not been there. Tabu was a little wasted in her role as she too has really good comic potential which was not utilised enough. It would have been a lot better if the true potential of the mixed up phone lines were shown with both parties receiving a number of calls and then having the comedy continue into the second half of the film.

The three main protagonists are very good in their roles and act very well together. I always like Suneil Shetty in comic roles as he always brings this straight man in the wrong place attitude. Akshay Kumar was better than I thought he would be. Paresh Rawal was good in his role as always. Was I glad I chose to watch this film? Yes I was as I really enjoyed the first half. I was disappointed with the second half as I felt that the writers and the director simply ran out of steam. But still an enjoyable movie to watch