It’s easy to make rip-offs these days.
All you have to do is Indianize the
story somewhat, shoot it at foreign
locales, hire some foreign ‘talent’,
throw in a couple of booty-shakers, a
couple of sentimental songs, smart but
not-so-witty lines, pretty bimbettes
who do nothing but flash ample amounts
of cleavage and pout till you think
they are going to hurl, heroes who
have Mickey Mouse jobs with no
substance but are rich, and a ‘cute’
moment in the tale towards the end,
and you got it. Heyy Babyy,
directed by first-time director Sajid
Khan, falls into this very category.
Why
do all the characters in such movies
have to be rich and firmly ensconced
in a foreign land? And when you are
rich in a Hindi movie, you don’t stop
at just being rich. Naturally, they
have to have a pool, a house which
looks like a health spa, chauffer
driven cars, (of course they call the
driver ‘driver’), discreet looking
butlers who of course have been flown
in from London, and if all that is not
enough, a private jet. And why does
the owner have to be a blithering
fool, who goes completely bonkers
during anytime in the movie? And what
the hell does he do for a living? We
are never told, and we never will
know. Oh, and why all the marriages in
the movie HAVE to be Punjabi!?
Anyway, back to the plot. Heyy
Babyy is about three horny men -
Arush (Akshay Kumar, he does need to
do something about that gummy smile),
Eddie (Ritesh Deshmukh, the only watch
able character in the movie, if not
the most loveable), and Al (Fardeen
Khan, someone please tell him he
resembles a potato sack, AND he should
NOT act). The three men have only one
goal (wow), to bed as many women as
they can. They all live together in a
swanky house in Sidney, and hold
questionable jobs. Arush is the
manager of a nightclub, Eddie plays
the bear in children’s parties and
amusement parks, and Al I am not sure.
(Since their professions are declared
in the beginning in the movie, and you
never see anyone doing their jobs but
Eddie, but that is simply because of
his costume.)
The film opens with the title song by
the same name, and we see these
‘studs’ singing, dancing, ogling
openly at a lot of women, spanking
their bottoms, rubbing their crotches
against them, even trying to disrobe
them and pour champagne all over them.
The women don’t seem to mind one bit;
instead they flutter their eyelashes
and make orgasmic faces.
Cut to the next day where our mighty
heroes are snoring in the arms of
semi-naked white women when the
doorbell rings and they are horrified
to find a baby girl at their doorstep,
with a note that says something to the
effect that “its your daughter and you
gotta take care of her now.” The
heroes are naturally quite shaken by
this and an unfunny debate ensues
about “who’s your daddy baby” in a
sequence which goes on forever and
ends only after the baby starts
crying. Our heroes quickly establish
that the baby is hungry and they need
to feed her. So a quick trip to the
supermarket is made. (To buy baby food
of course, but the camera misses that
and pans to Huggies, Pampers, etc.)
AK (Akshay Kumar) encounters a pair of
mammoth mammaries (proudly displayed),
gets slapped for indecent questioning,
discovers that ‘nipples’ aren’t
necessarily always a part of anatomy,
and gets back with a truckload of baby
food supplies among favorite biscuits
for his friends (!!!).
The baby keeps them awake all night,
and our heroes get busy with changing
nappies, feeding the baby, and taking
short frequently interrupted naps. The
entire five-minute scene is
repetitive, and I confess I did sneak
in a quick nap myself. The audience
loved all of this, and a lot of thighs
were slapped.
A new strategy is planned, and they
make lists of all the women they have
slept over the last one year (it is
also revealed that they don’t mind
sharing their women), and the next ten
inane minutes are spent contacting
these women (most of them white) at
beaches and parks, and getting
publicly beaten. The scriptwriter
obviously sat with copious leather
bound volumes of Champak and
Lotpot and generously copied ideas
for this. Finally, when they have
exhausted their respective lists, they
come back home and ponder a little
more on how to deal with it.
The men are furious, and tired, and in
this state, all of them lose their
jobs on the same day (for the
exception of Fardeen Khan whose
profession is a mystery anyway) and
they decide to dump the baby
somewhere. They do exactly that, they
come back, it starts raining, they
realize their mistake, rush back to
the baby who is by now comatose, take
her to a hospital, scream, cry,
cajole, and get the baby miraculously
saved. From then on, the baby is the “aankh
ka taara.”
They stop boozing (the wine bottles
are replaced by milk bottles,) they
stop looking at sexy women, they stop
and help pregnant women on the street,
they take turns looking after the baby
(since all three of them are jobless
in a foreign country, and the state
must be paying for everything), and
thank the baby for making them “achha
aadmi”. Everyone is smiling
(including the baby, undoubtedly to
her real mother, hidden behind the
camera) and absolutely delirious
because of this newfound love, and I
fought back the rising bile--even
sprayed Pepsi on the people in front,
but they didn’t notice.
Just when you thought all’s well that
ends well, the ‘real’ mother (Vidya
Balan, she’s really getting on my
nerves now) who looks like Gestapo
incarnated (in a 1950’s hairstyle and
hip-hugging summer dresses), turns up
and takes the baby away to her home,
which looks like a rehab clinic/
heritage resort, because it is the
law. We realize AK is the father. She
also confronts her father (Boman Irani,
the new HAMster, who apparently told
stories about the baby being dead on
birth, and who actually left the baby
at the doorstep), tells him that she
hates him, but still goes on living in
the same house.
We are never told what Boman Irani
does for a living either and how on
earth did he amass such vast wealth,
and exactly why does he act like a
retard throughout the movie. (A
credible explanation would be that his
parents were siblings, but I am being
out of line here.) We are also treated
to the history of how the baby was
conceived when AK went to Dilli,
gave her ‘Jhoothe Vaade’ to
have sex with her (since the only girl
who will not sleep with AK is the girl
AK does not want to sleep with) and
left for Sydney, not realizing that
there’s a bun in the oven.
Oh well, the heroes are shattered, and
they want the baby back at any cost.
So, they confront Boman on being such
a jackass of a father, get confronted
back, and come up with a plan so
ludicrous that it immediately reminds
you of stories in Women’s Era (If
anyone ever bothered to read them; I
used to!). The plan goes haywire
somewhere, VB gets furious, and off
she goes with the baby in her private
jet (!!!), only to return back to AK
and gang, with all her pearly whites
on display (I swear I am gonna knock
them off one by one someday) and to
live happily forever. End.
Akshay Kumar should really stick to
modeling for Grasim Suitings or
Lifebuoy advertisements, because
acting is certainly something which he
cannot do. Yes, he did ok in Hera
Pheri, but that’s only because the
script was brilliant, and Paresh Rawal
played a major part in the success.
Yes, he also did a good job in
Sangharsh, but again, that one was
a well-made movie. His so-called comic
skills are nothing but irritating, he
speaks in a Punjabi accent all the
time, and the voice goes for a toss
every time he tries to raise it a few
octaves. Oh, and I forgot to mention
the gummy smile. I’ll say the same for
Fardeen Khan who just cannot look in
the camera, refuses to let go of his
public school accent, and doesn’t know
what to do with his hands most of the
time. Oh, and he should really give up
his ‘play-boy’ image, he looks like he
can use rehab.
Riteish Deshmukh is getting better
since when he started, and he really
should choose his movies carefully.
This is not one of his better
performances, but he does stand out.
Vidya Balan and Boman Irani just ham
up their lines, but then they have
nothing much to do in the movie – the
former looks unnecessarily stern and
ridiculous, the latter is an
embarrassment to watch.
Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy disappoint once
again, right after Marigold.
You lose interest in the songs the
minute they are played. They should
stick to producing albums, which is
what they are really good at. Farah
Khan too, despite this one being her
baby brother’s (Sajid Khan) debut,
does absolutely nothing.
The movie seriously lacks production
values. Sets have been used and
re-used as a cost-saving measure. The
local ‘talent’ used in the movie are
visibly amused at being in a film, and
can't stop smiling at the camera. The
camera work is often shaky, and mostly
blurry, and out of focus, which gave
me a very bad headache. Cinematography
is non-existent, and stock shots of
Sydney are used generously.
Shahrukh Khan makes a two-minute
appearance (with a pony tail), which
also adds nothing, except cat-calls
from the crowd. The end credit does
say “Luv U Shahrukh” though.
In my opinion, Heyy Babyy is
completely missable, even on TV. What
I do suspect though, is that the movie
just might do good, going by the
reactions I saw in the cinema hall –
thigh clapping, whistling, a little
dancing, and uncontrollable laughter
all around, people walking out talking
about specific scenes and such. So do
go watch it, if you love babies, and
more than that enjoy looking at ‘cute’
baby forwards in their mail.
‘nuff said.
