Spoilers ahead…
Humshakals opens with a scene where Ashok (Saif Ali Khan) is doing stand-up comedy. At least, he seems to think he’s doing stand-up comedy – he’s really just unleashing PJs that were old when our grandfathers were in school. The audience, understandably, departs in droves. Ashok’s best buddy Kumar (Riteish Deshmukh) – Ashok… Kumar; I’ll wait a couple of minutes till you’re done laughing; done? okay then – asks him how he can keep doing this when he’s so obviously bad at it. This is something we might ask of the director Sajid Khan, who has, so far, shown little talent for making a movie. He does seem to have a sense of humour. In a later scene, two men are tortured by being made to watch Khan’s Himmatwala – with their eyelids taped open, like Malcolm McDowell’s in A Clockwork Orange. But the joke’s on us really. Ashok may suck at comedy, but he has tons of money – in other words, Sajid Khan can keep making movies for no reason other than a desire to keep doing it. Simply put, we’re doomed.
Why are our comedies so bad? We don’t have to search very far for the reasons – tempo-killing songs, underwritten heroines (Tamannaah Bhatia, Bipasha Basu, Esha Gupta), leaden pace, overlong running times… And we insist on casting stars rather than comic actors. Stars may be able to pull off light-hearted scenes or rom-coms, but for energetic lowbrow comedy – which is an art, by the way – you need someone like Satish Shah, who plays the tyrannical warden of a mental institution. He worships Hitler, Idi Amin and Gaddafi, and he imbues his scenes with a crackpot vitality. In my favourite bit, he performs the dandiya with a pair of live electrical cables. The other actor who acquits himself (dis)honourably is Ram Kapoor. Watch his rage vanish after being handed a lollipop, and you’ll be surprised at how comfortably he channels his inner idiot.
Humshakals is dedicated to the memory of the screen’s great nutters – Kishore Kumar, Jim Carrey, Peter Sellers. It’s a bad idea to remind us of how physical comedy can be done when what we have before us is the sight of Saif Ali Khan embarrassing himself thoroughly. Watching him in the scenes in the mental institution, I was reminded of Carrey’s sublime romp through similar situations in the first Ace Ventura movie. That, right there, is the difference between mastery and misery.
The story is something about people in multiple roles, and it’s set in motion because the Ram Kapoor character wants to usurp Ashok’s billions – and this brings us to the other reason we don’t make good comedies. Because the writing just isn’t good enough. Khan and his writers think of terrific setups – parathas made with cocaine and vodka; a drug derived from various species of dogs; lines from film songs being recited as dialogue (jahaan koi aata jaata nahin…), an apoplectic Prince Charles venting in Hindi – and these gags should have exploded on screen, but the follow-through is so uninspired and lazy that it appears as if they didn’t know what to do with these ideas once they dreamt them up. We walk in expecting lowbrow comedy and all we get is low-rent filmmaking.
KEY:
* Humshakals = lookalikes
* Malcolm McDowell’s in A Clockwork Orange = see here
* Satish Shah = see here
* dandiya = see here
* Carrey’s sublime romp = see here
* parathas = see here
* jahaan koi aata jaata nahin = see here
Copyright ©2014 Baradwaj Rangan. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
MANK
June 21, 2014
We walk in expecting lowbrow comedy and all we get is low-rent filmmaking.
Ha Ha ,you never gave a better summation than this one.
And this was the film that was supposed to be the remake of gulzar- sanjeev kumar masterpiece angoor. shudder! .Is there any way to get this Sajid khan out of the film director’s chair and back to tv anchoring? . he was much more tolerable there.
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Niranjan
June 21, 2014
“Is there any way to get this Sajid khan out of the film director’s chair and back to tv anchoring?”
I think the best way is if 2 or 3 consecutive movies of his bomb so bad, the stench remains on his person for a while. Then there is some hope. If by chance some movie of his makes even a moderate amount of money, he’ll relapse into the director’s seat.
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Sam
June 22, 2014
Sajid has never been a great filmmaker, but the Housefull films, as overlong and taxing as they are, had some wit, energy, and polish that this lacked. This was very off, even by those standards. The material in those films felt crafted, here it felt plopped on screen. He usually had some moderately inspired song sequences, while these were all flat. You mention that Saif wasn’t the right guy for the job, but he would have come across much better with decent filmmaking. I felt many scenes would have been funny with stronger editing, and I noticed Sajid’s longtime editor wasn’t there for this. Perhaps Sajid didn’t have the budget or time to get what he needed. Maybe Nadiadwala ensured some quality control on those films. Or maybe it was his sister’s help that made those films a teeny bit more watchable than the average masala comedy, but she was too busy with her own film to lend a hand here. Or maybe Himmatwala was the flop that crushed Sajid, his Saawariya as you might say, and he’ll never be the same again.
Anyhow, in the tradition of Humshakals, I’ve already said three times as much as the film deserves. My ultimate takeaway is that as far as movie making goes, Sajid is probably best served to be a guy in a team of writers, coming up with ideas for gags but not coming near steering the ship.
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Ravi K
June 23, 2014
“Why are our comedies so bad? We don’t have to search very far for the reasons – tempo-killing songs, underwritten heroines (Tamannaah Bhatia, Bipasha Basu, Esha Gupta), leaden pace, overlong running times… And we insist on casting stars rather than comic actors.”
I’m hard-pressed to think of many Indian comedies that I like. There are quite a few with some funny comedy tracks and scenes here and there, but very few through-and-through comedies that are any good.
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Niranjan
June 23, 2014
I had seen a piece by Jai Arjun Singh (this, http://jaiarjun.blogspot.in/2014/04/on-krishna-shastris-jump-cut-and-notes.html to be exact) where he discusses a rather interesting and insightful event that occurred at the Chandigarh Lit Festival. Apparently, when someone in the midst of a eulogy for Jaspal Bhatti referred to him as a great comedian, a young man angrily yelled that he was a great satirist, and not a comedian.
In particular, the popular conception is that a comedian is more or a clown, a bumbling fool – a person everyone can laugh at. No wonder, all our comedy is of this type (the separate comedy tracks, with the ‘comedian’ being the butt of everyone’s ire), so no serious coemdy writing actually happens. And when someone does it, a whole bunch of people are offended (see this; again a link at the end of the same piece by Jai Arjun):
http://thesinglescreen.wordpress.com/2013/11/14/tujhe-sharam-nahin-aati-khud-ko-indian-bolte-huye/
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Apu
June 25, 2014
Help help help – it seems Sajid Khan is planning to turn Humshakals into a franchise: http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/movies/features/type/view/id/6771
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Olemisstarana
June 25, 2014
BR – would you like us to start a change.org petition for you, gathering signatures campaigning to let you off the hook for Sajid-Abbas-Mastan type flicks? I do enjoy you eviscerating these, but I also feel so bad for you…
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MANK
June 25, 2014
Olemisstarana, oh pls no. Brangan’s pieces are the only good thing about sajid khan’s pics. What more,His every piece on himesh reshammiya films are a masterpiece. Cant wait for the next HR release
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Kaushik Bhattacharya
June 25, 2014
“but for energetic lowbrow comedy – which is an art, by the way – you need someone like Satish Shah”
That reminded me of Peechha Karro (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374117/). Completely insane and zany and Satish Shah, Ravi Baswani, and Amjad Khan (whose comic talents were grossly underutilised by Bollywood IMO) were a total hoot especially for the first 40 minutes or so of the film.
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brangan
June 27, 2014
Ravi K: Same here. There are a lot of films that make me laugh — but in scenes, not throughout (or at least, for the most part), the way say a “Duck Soup” or a “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” does. I do think the problem lies with our style of filmmaking (songs, romance, etc.), which is best suited for love stories or dramas.
If you notice, we don’t have many good action films either, like “Where Eagles Dare” and that ilk.
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Niranjan
June 27, 2014
Unfortunately, my hopes have all gone phut…this monstrosity apparently has made enough money for this fellow to call it a hit. And as if this wasn’t enough, he says in his interview with the Times (in today’s edition), that he regards the audience as kings..who would have wondered one can serve steaming piles of dung and pass them off as delicacies?
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MANK
June 27, 2014
Brangan , i agree with you about action films and no film made here able to match where eagles dare or First blood. (Remember their hindi film counterparts :tehelka ,zalzala,loha , need one say more), but disagree about comedies , there has been some terrific full length comedies. And in the hands of the right directors , the impediments you mentioned – Songs, romance- can add to the comedy in the film in a manner in which hollywood films cannot. How about the Kishore kumar -mehmood Padosan.Its a fun ride throughout.What more the songs actually add to the fun in the movie. Can the hollywood filmmakers ever come up with anything to match ‘ek chatur naar’.ditto for ‘meri pyari bindu’ . May be a couple of songs in ‘Singing’n the rain has mixed comedy in songs well .You know ‘moses supposes ‘ and ‘makem laugh’.But not anywhere close to this. How about the hrishikesh mukherjee films Golmaal and chupke chupke. He uses songs and romance to add to the comedy in the film.Even Prakash mehra’s films Namak halaal and sharaabi were full on comedy with Bachchan at the peak of his prowess.’Pag ghungroo’ and ‘ pyar de’ were so much fun.
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Olemisstarana
June 27, 2014
Niranjan… it’s okay, you aren’t alone in this boat.
http://www.scoopwhoop.com/humor/sajid-khan-film-post-effects/
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MANK
June 27, 2014
Olemisstarana, thanx for sharing that, it was damn funny.’Holocaust is more funny than this film’ , LOL.
well sajid khan celebrated the success(?) of his film by putting up a big banner with the title ’74 crs in 4 days’.what kind of moron does that?. Guess now with the humshakals trilogy ahead , he wont be returning to TV anytime soon. Well movies’ loss is television is gain.
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ankitsw1
October 31, 2014
Good movie! Total Chutiyapa. humshakals
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