I Kind of Wish MY Lookalike Had Been the One to Watch This Movie
Today's review: Humshakals.
While my experiences with Bollywood movies have been hit and miss, and I definitely think most of them go on too long, I still don’t mind checking them out as long as they have a promising sounding plot. Humshakals looked like it might be an amusing comedy, so it went on my “to watch” list. Well, I can definitely say it was meant to be a comedy; whether or not it’s actually amusing depends very much on your sense of humor.
Humshakals, it turns out, means “lookalike”, so you can probably already guess where this may be going. As the movie begins, we follow Ashok (Saif Ali Khan) and Kumar (Riteish Deshmukh), two good friends living and working in London. Ashok is the son of a millionaire businessman who’s currently in a coma, something that’s a source of consternation to his evil uncle Mamaji (Ram Kapoor). Mamaji cannot, however, pull a Lion King, because all the family money will go to charity if both Ashok and his father die. With the help of an unscrupulous doctor, he instead makes it look like Ashok has gone mad by having him drink a concoction that makes him act like a dog for 24 hours, thus having him committed to a mental asylum with the intent of slipping him the “medicine” every day for the rest of his life. Kumar also accidentally drinks said medicine and winds up in there with Ashok, but fortunately for them, Doctor Shivani Gupta (Esha Gupta) spots the medicine being slipped into their drink and starts arranging for their release. What nobody knows is that, in the wing of the asylum for the criminally insane, there are two patients also named Ashok and Kumar (played by the same actors), with that Kumar having a crush on Dr. Shivani. On the day Ashok and Kumar 1 are set to be released, Ashok and Kumar 2 sneak over the dividing wall to flirt with Dr. Shivani, leading to a switcheroo. After that, while a lot of things play out as you might guess, there are some unexpected curveballs thrown in. Not to mention the expected Bollywood musical numbers…
I was kind of bracing myself for this movie not to go well when I saw the text that opened the movie. First, it gives a disclaimer that not only says that no animals were harmed in the making of this film, but that it means no disrespect to mental patients. Next, it gives thanks to several comedians as a source of inspiration, including Jim Carrey and Peter Sellers, people whose comedy I personally find hit or miss (mostly miss). Finally, it opens with a quote from a wise man, except that the person giving the quote forgot what he actually said. While that’s definitely enough to let us know that this is going to be a comedy, it’s a clear indicator of what type of comedy to expect. Even then, I was flabbergasted by the sources of humor they went for. While the filmmakers occasionally had clever bits, like an homage to the Marx Brothers mirror scene, a lot of their humor went for the lowest common denominator. Just off the top of my head, I remember toilet humor, genital humor, physical violence, gay stereotypes, and male drag that leads to men trying to have sex with people they think are women. Not to mention that there’s a sadistic warden in the criminal asylum who straight up worships dictators like Hitler, Stalin, and Saddam Hussein, and who makes a Holocaust joke. While that last one in particular is probably slightly more acceptable in India, I don’t think it’s going to go over well with most Americans and a good deal of Europeans. As for the rest of the humor, it really depends on your tolerance for those brands of comedy. I will admit I liked some of the jokes, but it very much became too much of a muchness after awhile.
This isn’t helped by the fact that the actual “switcheroo” plot (or rather, plots; it gets really convoluted by the final act) follows a lot of the expected beats. Nor does it help that Ashok and Kumar 2 display their madness by pulling faces and really hamming it up, which again gets tiring pretty quickly. There’s also a liberal use of Deus ex Machina/Admiral Plot Device, an extended scene that does eventually become relevant but initially feels like a plot cul-de-sac, and a reliance on the “big misunderstanding”/talking at cross purposes trope, which I personally don’t care for. Since humor is subjective, I can’t say this makes it a truly bad movie, but it certainly wasn’t doing much of anything for me.
Since your feelings on the humor are probably the most notable thing about this movie, the only other things I have to talk about are minor observations. I’ve always been slightly baffled by the random English scattered about in these movies, but at least this time, it can be somewhat justified, since the bulk of the movie takes place in Britain. One of the musical numbers feels tacked on, like the filmmakers knew another song was expected and were scrambling to find a justification. Ironically, it’s the one number that’s actually somewhat plot relevant and isn’t just an aside to discuss how characters are feeling. There’s a setup involving another Indian language that was begging for a payoff, but never actually gets any sort of resolution. Though given everything else the filmmakers were juggling, perhaps it’s not a surprise that some things fell through the cracks. And finally, a combination of a compliment and a sad commentary. Even though there are multiple Ashoks and Kumars running around, the actors do a good job of differentiating them through body language, and the special effects guys seamlessly make it look like all of them are in the same place when the situation calls for it. And yet the three female love interests in the movie were difficult for me to tell apart when they weren’t doing their jobs (doctor, TV host, assistant). I’m not sure if that says something bad about me or their roles in the story…
I personally wouldn’t recommend this movie. However, if you like Bollywood movies and the types of humor I described, you may want to give it a look. If nothing else, I commend the writers for taking a complicated situation and managing to keep it straight most of the time. I just wish they’d used it in service of a different tale.
While my experiences with Bollywood movies have been hit and miss, and I definitely think most of them go on too long, I still don’t mind checking them out as long as they have a promising sounding plot. Humshakals looked like it might be an amusing comedy, so it went on my “to watch” list. Well, I can definitely say it was meant to be a comedy; whether or not it’s actually amusing depends very much on your sense of humor.
Humshakals, it turns out, means “lookalike”, so you can probably already guess where this may be going. As the movie begins, we follow Ashok (Saif Ali Khan) and Kumar (Riteish Deshmukh), two good friends living and working in London. Ashok is the son of a millionaire businessman who’s currently in a coma, something that’s a source of consternation to his evil uncle Mamaji (Ram Kapoor). Mamaji cannot, however, pull a Lion King, because all the family money will go to charity if both Ashok and his father die. With the help of an unscrupulous doctor, he instead makes it look like Ashok has gone mad by having him drink a concoction that makes him act like a dog for 24 hours, thus having him committed to a mental asylum with the intent of slipping him the “medicine” every day for the rest of his life. Kumar also accidentally drinks said medicine and winds up in there with Ashok, but fortunately for them, Doctor Shivani Gupta (Esha Gupta) spots the medicine being slipped into their drink and starts arranging for their release. What nobody knows is that, in the wing of the asylum for the criminally insane, there are two patients also named Ashok and Kumar (played by the same actors), with that Kumar having a crush on Dr. Shivani. On the day Ashok and Kumar 1 are set to be released, Ashok and Kumar 2 sneak over the dividing wall to flirt with Dr. Shivani, leading to a switcheroo. After that, while a lot of things play out as you might guess, there are some unexpected curveballs thrown in. Not to mention the expected Bollywood musical numbers…
I was kind of bracing myself for this movie not to go well when I saw the text that opened the movie. First, it gives a disclaimer that not only says that no animals were harmed in the making of this film, but that it means no disrespect to mental patients. Next, it gives thanks to several comedians as a source of inspiration, including Jim Carrey and Peter Sellers, people whose comedy I personally find hit or miss (mostly miss). Finally, it opens with a quote from a wise man, except that the person giving the quote forgot what he actually said. While that’s definitely enough to let us know that this is going to be a comedy, it’s a clear indicator of what type of comedy to expect. Even then, I was flabbergasted by the sources of humor they went for. While the filmmakers occasionally had clever bits, like an homage to the Marx Brothers mirror scene, a lot of their humor went for the lowest common denominator. Just off the top of my head, I remember toilet humor, genital humor, physical violence, gay stereotypes, and male drag that leads to men trying to have sex with people they think are women. Not to mention that there’s a sadistic warden in the criminal asylum who straight up worships dictators like Hitler, Stalin, and Saddam Hussein, and who makes a Holocaust joke. While that last one in particular is probably slightly more acceptable in India, I don’t think it’s going to go over well with most Americans and a good deal of Europeans. As for the rest of the humor, it really depends on your tolerance for those brands of comedy. I will admit I liked some of the jokes, but it very much became too much of a muchness after awhile.
This isn’t helped by the fact that the actual “switcheroo” plot (or rather, plots; it gets really convoluted by the final act) follows a lot of the expected beats. Nor does it help that Ashok and Kumar 2 display their madness by pulling faces and really hamming it up, which again gets tiring pretty quickly. There’s also a liberal use of Deus ex Machina/Admiral Plot Device, an extended scene that does eventually become relevant but initially feels like a plot cul-de-sac, and a reliance on the “big misunderstanding”/talking at cross purposes trope, which I personally don’t care for. Since humor is subjective, I can’t say this makes it a truly bad movie, but it certainly wasn’t doing much of anything for me.
Since your feelings on the humor are probably the most notable thing about this movie, the only other things I have to talk about are minor observations. I’ve always been slightly baffled by the random English scattered about in these movies, but at least this time, it can be somewhat justified, since the bulk of the movie takes place in Britain. One of the musical numbers feels tacked on, like the filmmakers knew another song was expected and were scrambling to find a justification. Ironically, it’s the one number that’s actually somewhat plot relevant and isn’t just an aside to discuss how characters are feeling. There’s a setup involving another Indian language that was begging for a payoff, but never actually gets any sort of resolution. Though given everything else the filmmakers were juggling, perhaps it’s not a surprise that some things fell through the cracks. And finally, a combination of a compliment and a sad commentary. Even though there are multiple Ashoks and Kumars running around, the actors do a good job of differentiating them through body language, and the special effects guys seamlessly make it look like all of them are in the same place when the situation calls for it. And yet the three female love interests in the movie were difficult for me to tell apart when they weren’t doing their jobs (doctor, TV host, assistant). I’m not sure if that says something bad about me or their roles in the story…
I personally wouldn’t recommend this movie. However, if you like Bollywood movies and the types of humor I described, you may want to give it a look. If nothing else, I commend the writers for taking a complicated situation and managing to keep it straight most of the time. I just wish they’d used it in service of a different tale.