travised87
I just watched this one on TV, with some anticipation and a few fears. Both were realised, to my retrospective disappointment:Hera Pheri told the story of three losers, Shyam, Baburao and Raju, and their attempts to escape the poverty and desperation they and their respective families were in to ultimately become rich. A simple story, with a moral angle, and of course, the wider focus on comedy. They get the money, climb out of poverty, all is well, blah blah and the film ends. This is where its sequel starts.There are formulas, patterns, tried and trusted that many directors reuse for their films. The formula for Hera Pheri, was used for hungama, hulchul, and several other subsequent priyadarshan films. Problem is, tautologically speaking, it no longer works for the sequel of the originator.Speaking of circles, the director - who is different from the original - gets himself stuck in a plot circle (no pun intended) and leaves us wondering about the subsequent direction of the film. After losing their property early on in the film, the trio are on the streets, back to square one, and this means of course that the rest of the plot will be about them trying to get back to being rich. Predictable? Yes. Thrilling? No. The problem like I said, is the blind reusage of the winning formula of other films. It seems that there must be a goose chase, and the familiar 'hera pheri' (and all its synonyms) style ending with all characters insanely after the object of desire. To do that, he brings the trio to the footpath, and exasperated, we, with them, start again. this undoing of the original's work to, only to redo it again is an immature directorial gimmick.Hera Pheri was a controlled film, with a simple, poignant tale subsumed into the larger serving of comedy. The 'Hera Pheri' element, was mainly at the end. Here, due to the absence of a plot, it bursts in uninvited half way through the story. This means the relinquishing of control so early on, which is disastrous. We become lost in the madness, and seek an elucidating ending, a 'clear-it-all-out' which doesn't happen. The heaps of plot twists become entagled webs that keep piling up, until at the end, we, exhausted, become more desperate than ever for a clear, happy end to cure our misery. This never happens, and instead what the director does is suddenly in the last two minutes, expect the audience to put on our thinking caps, which we never brought to the film, to swallow the ending. As much as i understood the ending, I was initially in disbelief and frustrated enough to spew expletives.A failure, a case of trying to ambitiously juggle too many things at once is what brings this film down. What he could have focused on instead was perhaps the moral element: how the trio learn that money is not everything, and that happiness actually is about the simpler things in life, etc. Even the characters, seems to have escaped the strings of their puppeteer here. Rawal is excessive, and the other two portray their characterisations poorly this time. It is as though the director hung a piece of meat high up on a string a distance away from the audience, letting them smell and savour its fragrance in the original, and his successor decided to just cut the string and let them devour it in this one. What ever it was, it seemed a cheap imitation of the original, and it didn't help that it was just one of many money-grabbing sequels released in the year.
Hidden Voice
I watched the original film when a friend of mine lent me a DVD of the film.It was fun and entertaining.It doesn't focus on the characters or the plot well,and it's pretty much a mindless comedy and it was messy throughout.But nevertheless I liked it.It was the first Bollywood that I kind of enjoyed.Mainly because it had originality.I'd give that a mere 6.5 out of 10.Paresh Rawal stole every scene and Askshay Kumar(one of only actor that I admire,with Aamir Khan and Akshay Khanna for his performance in Dil Chahta hai only.No other actor is good enough.)proved early on that he can take the comedy genre well.His collaboration with the film's director made yet another mindless,silly,mess of a comedy,which was really fun and entertaining because of Akshay Kumar.Here it's a disaster.It's a showcase of how unoriginal and terrible Bollywood can be.Now a sequel to that film is out.I wasn't keen on watching this film.I didn't even had any expectations.I didn't even gave a damn about this film but I gave a look anyway.And the verdict,well,I would never say disappointing.It's an expression that you cannot use for a Bollywood film.Cuz a bollywood film can never be disappointing ,you can't expect anything but a terrible film.Before you enter a film you can always expect worse.And this is exactly what happens.I don't understand what the hype was all about.This was less a comedy and more of a mess.It's loud ,noisy,mindless,ridiculous and overstuffed.The story is heavily borrowed,wait,copied from the Guy Richie's cult,Lock,Stock and Three barrels.Especially in the second half ,where the film borrows most of the scenes from that film.Both plot-wise, and scene to scene enactment and characters.It also borrows slightly from Snatch.And a few more Hollywood crime capers.And redoes the scenes from the original.Yes,I enjoyed the original.It was ridiculously mindless and silly.But I liked it.There was originality in that film.Develops the story and characters well.Here,it's a mess.From beginning to end,it was all yelling,screaming and screeching noises.Dialogues were shouted out.The comedy feels terribly forced.In the original,the three actors gave really funny and good acting and had great chemistry.Here,they try everything they can to make you laugh,but all they can do was pull off 3 or 4 minor laughs,1 or 2 actual laughs,and a couple of chuckles.The rest feels forced.It seems funny but it isn't at all.The actors don't seem to get along well this time.And even the funniest character ,which was called Babu Rau seems less funny than the first.He was annoying.Kumar and the rest were not funny.The execution was all terrible.The first film's director should have returned.At least he would know how to make people laugh.The writer director has no idea how to make people laugh or what he is doing.This is yet another over-hyped film.Bollywood has no celebrities.The actors are praised for no special reason.It's not the audience or fans that make them famous,it's actually the media,or TV shows that promote these actors.It's Bollywood who promotes these actors,praises them for no reason but to make people be aware of their actors all over the world.The audience don't even give a rat's ass.They're just there to kill 3 hours in the dark and then forget about it.They don't care about the actors,they've got far better things to do.They work.Bollywood is just a self-promoting industry desperately trying to do anything to get noticed.The actors don't even deserve the praise they get.They are not worthy of it.None of it is true.It's just a big stunt.The actors are turned into celebrities even when they have one dud after another.Just because they think the actors are good ,so they promote them.That's all they do.Now this film I heard was over-hyped,buzzed around the television.And was claimed to be the most original and best film of the year,just like KRRISH.And what do I see here?Nothing.All of it was untrue.A bluff.Another film called Chup Chup ke was rather better.But just as weak.It's made by the original film's director.But it was far better than this romp.This is not a funny film at all.Only a few laughs and forced entertainment.It's successful back in its country because of its hype.A low class comedy that only favors the Indian people.
ssst419
I saw Hera Pheri a few years back and laughed a lot. Script was witty, direction was great, acting ( Paresh Rawal's) was excellent( i just hope it wasn't a copy of some foreign movie. I just watched Phir Hera Pheri and felt like bolting out of the theater. There are repetitions of Hera Pheri scenes, disgusting plagiarism from a very well known English movie, uninspired performances and direction trying desperately to be funny.It is disgusting to watch movies produced by a country with second largest population incapable of coming out with an original plot line.Why on earth do we have to steal soundtracks, story lines and concepts from others? Song and dance we have.....and even that is repetitive.Where has art house cinema gone?
