Guy Ritchie Meets Charlie Chaplin (well, almost). Review on Phir Hera Pheri

WARNING: Contains some spoilers. . .

I saw Phir Hera Pheri last evening at the Andheri Fame Adlabs in Mumbai and came away a bit disappointed... The old adage, sequels never really live up seems so true... and lest I forget, the hullabaloo over Kavya Vishwanathan's plagiarisation (sorry, I really meant to say internalisation... but I just could not bring myself to utter that word) of Megan McCafferty's work should also extend to the unashamed purloining of comic screenplays and turning them into crap, like what was done in this movie...

Firstly the plot - What I saw last night was a complicated and puerile adaptation of the Guy Ritchie directed Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Why do I say half baked, because unlike its English counterpart, this movie complicated the plot needlessly, almost to the point of tedium. Secondly, the cast, especially Paresh Rawal, had a brilliant opportunity to swing in some really subtle humour, Indian style and they let it slide... The original plot in English is about a rich don's son losing a fortune over a card game and being forced to pay up to a card shark. He plots a crafty steal-from-one-crook-to-pay-another type plan with three of his friends and involving drug growers, gun runners, an gunman for hire and his son and the rest of the movie, including the two antique guns that come and depart from his possession, turn into an unbridled laugh riot.

Sorry, for that brief segue... back to the main review... the plot in PHP borrowed heavily from Lock, Stock and... and adapted it to suit the Indian masses in its own meandering fashion... 2/10 for lousy adaptation of a plot and unoriginal screenplay.

Cast performance - I am thinking to myself, "Who should I crucify first?" Its painful to see a stellar star cast like Akshay Kumar, Suneil Shetty and Paresh Rawal and that too one propped up by an equally decent, if not good, supporting cast waste this opportunity to make us come and while our cares away while watching this movie... Johny Lever was most asinine, playing a "wannabe" big fish don (if there is ever an Indian adaptation of a Mid Summer Night's Dream, he can surely play Nick Bottom the Donkey, without applying any disguise), Akshay Kumar ineffectually portraying a nouveau riche down on his luck (easy come, easy go?), Suneil Shetty trying to have us believe that he was still looking for a job instead of using his share of the "gain" from Hera Pheri (Part 1) to turn entrepreneur (one only hopes, sigh!!!), Paresh Rawal in the most garish of colors, painting the town and the country side in Turquoise Blue drapes or Hawaiian style florals so bright, even the sun took to wearing shades... And the less said about Bipasha Basu's performance, the better... I mean why cast this woman in a semi-lead role, when all she can do is "nautch baliye" and that too badly... Personally, I wouldn't rate this as a VH1 moment in her acting career - she demonstrated more ability in that shampoo ad... Her dialogue delivery was wooden and apart from one bar-room-blitz type number opposite Akshay Kumar, all we effectively saw of her was running around in a green pullover or a red top... I mean, if I wanted to see something vaguely sporty, I would have rented Iqbal or Chariots of Fire. 3/10 for cast performance

Soundtrack - Bad. I am not talking about the beat or the music... Its the delivery... Why listen to music in Dolby or DTS, if all that its used for is to amplify the bass beat in the background... And I really would have preferred the last song, the one where they dress up in baby blues and pinks and try to turn into a western style ensemble to have much ahead in the viewing curve... I am not sure if this is true of all Indian movies but the ones I have watched on the big screen as well as rented on DVD have one uniform feature - DTS and Dolby 5.1 only for the audio soundtrack or for an overly done emotional or fight sequence. I would give this 3/10.

Cinematography - What I liked in the entire movie was the finale in the circus... Truly slapstick humour a la Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy and very enjoyable, I was laughing through the entire sequence... See and this is what I mean when I said earlier on that I was disappointed, why pay for a 2.5 hour flick and be entertained for just 15-20 minutes... I was bored by half time and was playing with my cell phone and messaging people... Probably rate this 5/10.

Cheers

S