Phata Poster Nikhla Hero

Was pleasantly surprised as to how enjoyable the movie really was!! Total paisa vasool, fun and wholesome Bollywood flick after a long time. It is not sleazy like Grand Masti or mindless like Chenni Express!!

Raj Kumar Santoshi has given us another timeless classic comedy after my favorite 'Andaz Apna Apna!!

Leads are good - I mean Shahid annoys and Ilena looks pretty!

Songs are fun, especially the Atif Aslam track and the 'aghal bhaghal' number.

Dialogues and scenes LOL - without being cheap! Perfect night out movie without your thinking hats on!!

Rajkumar Santoshi is trying hard to recreate the magic of the cult comedy 'Andaz Apna Apna (1994)', he attempted it with 'Ajab Prem Ki Gazab Kahani (2009)' but it was not even close to it i.e. beyond comparison. He now approaches with "Phata Poster Nikhla Hero" which is not even close to 'Ajab Prem Ki Gazab Kahani'. 'Andaz Apna Apna (1994)' was released in 90s, receptivity and ingenuity have been changed entirely since then and we are in the phase of emerging Indian Cinema. Audiences require some commonsensical and decent screenplays because reiteration is not serving any purpose. Rajkumar Santoshi is a veteran, active since 'Ghayal (1990)', it is really a high time to understand the level of cinema and discard all the gimmicks. I am not able to understand the motivation behind making such films, what really drove the producers and the director? 'Phata Poster Nikhla Hero' about Savitri (Padmini Kolhapure), a righteous mother, who dreams to make his son Vishwas (Shahid Kapoor) an honest police officer. Vishwas in contrast dreams to become an actor. One fine day Vishwas gets a training call from Mumbai; this gives him a chance to pursue his acting career. In the process Vishwas is inadvertently taken as police officer, by Kajal (Ileana D'Cruz) a reporter. Everyone starts to believe that he is a cop and it starts the misunderstandings and comedy of errors.

The screenplay revolves around a wire thin plot, which is jarringly uneven. It heavily relies upon the happenings which is really unexciting. It includes many precipitous scenes, forced song sequences, abrupt love track and horrendous background score.

For at least 15 minutes it runs on the right track but abruptly goes off the track and goes into oblivion. You will witness forcefully plotted situations one after other, it really drags the story and becomes monotonous.

It lacks on the technical part too, the fight scenes are atrociously choreographed, editing is totally wretched, all the colors have been used by the cinematographer and every scene seems like a rainbow on the screen. The motif behind these colorful scenes is really unknown; maybe they wanted to create a colorful comedy which ultimately is flat and tiresome.

Pritam's music has become a chart-buster, some tracks like 'Tu mere agal bagal', 'Dhating dance' and 'Main rang sharbaton ka' are playing in every channel and corner. But these songs are placed abruptly and don't run with the story. The best way to enjoy these songs, (for the lovers of 'Phata Poster Nikhla Hero's tracks) is to watch these only on the music channels; you will really appreciate Shahid's moves.

There is an array of the contemporary actors in the movie; in one word all of them are wasted. Shahid Kapoor shows his comical timings and strength in some parts but mostly he over-acted, his dance numbers are an exception though.Ileana D'Cruz was a miscast, she even does not look glamorous and her dialog delivery is terrible. Dharshan Jariwala, Saurabh Shukla, Sanjay Mishra, Zakir Hussain and Padmini Kolhapure have put great efforts but it could not save the film because of lack of punches and comical timings.

In a nutshell, it is really an insult to the comedy genre and Santoshi's own 'Andaz Apna Apna'. If the crew does not have the proper vision of creation, they should stop making such wastes. Such movies increase the bandwidth of idiot-ism and waste of money by all means.

4.6/10

Continuing from where he left four years back in AJAB PREM KI GHAZAB KAHANI,writer-director Raj Kumar Santoshi strikes again with another of his slapstick comedy called PHATA POSTER NIKHLA HERO wherein we have Shahid Kapoor trying almost similar things as played by Ranbir Kapoor in the 2009 hit.

Though in his latest comedy, Santoshi stresses a lot more on the emotional factor and mother-son relationship right from the first frame to the last. Still the good thing is that the film does have some fun filled comic moments reminding you of Santoshi's cult comedy ANDAZ APNA APNA and thus for me its much better than APKGK which I couldn't enjoy a lot, to be honest. In reality APKGK got a huge boost due to its big star-cast and hit melodious music missing in PHATA POSTER NIKHLA HERO. But the truth is that you will find more traces of that good old Santoshi of AAA in this Shahid-Ileana starrer (not relying on any Chaplin like sequences) as compared to director's 2009 blockbuster, quite frankly.

Having said that, the other dark side of the coin remains that PPNH does have an avoidable list of hiccups associated with its plot & story progression, which are sure going to restrict its box office results, as it seems. The film begins exactly like a typical Bollywood family drama of the 80s and then has a song in store too before the comedy takes it over from the front. The narration takes time to set the mood in but once it comes into the flow, you have a pretty good first half with many hilarious scenes and witty dialogues to enjoy on the lines of ANZAZ APNA APNA. The opening 30 minutes also have a surprise sequence with SALMAN KHAN wherein he too mentions AAA Part 2 being made by Santoshi with Aamir Khan in a sarcastic tone. Together the entire cast puts up a good show in few sequences and one overall enjoys the first half ignoring its initial weak moments and the deliberate songs.

Post intermission, as the viewers are ready to enjoy it more, surprisingly the film goes into a different mode altogether and drops badly. The long emotional & slightly absurd insertions simply ruin the enjoyable build up of its first half and one starts losing patience waiting for its promised comic moments for long. After a while it does strike back, but is not able to generate the similar kind of impact as made in its initial hour, till the climax. The villain's additional plot of Operation White Elephant simply falls flat and a few songs (in shorter versions) are thrown in just like that followed by a clumsy end (treating the Police real bad) which lacks the solid punch required in such comic scripts.

Musically PPNH has one enjoyable track "Tu Mere Agal Bagal Hai", which is not only melodiously composed (Pritam) and well sung (Mika) but also has a dazzling choreography well adapted by Shahid. Plus I also liked "Main Rang Sharbaton Ka" while watching it on the screen featuring the stunning Ileana. Besides both background score and cinematography enhance the comedy sequences fairly as required.

In the performance section, it's a Shahid Kapoor film all the way and the actor tries almost everything in his act quite convincingly. Shahid shows variety in his act but unfortunately the script plays the spoil sport here particularly in the second half. Ileana in her second film post BARFI plays it well but doesn't get any strong role to present her acting skills. It was really a treat to watch Padmini Kolhapure in a major, long length role after a long time. Providing the much needed comic support, Sanjay Mishra, Saurab Shukla, Darshan Jariwala and Zakir Hussain are truly superb with their admirable timing. Mukesh Tiwari sincerely tries hard to put up a good show as the villain but Nargis Fakhri is not up to the mark in her song-dance cameo.

Putting it together, the biggest merit of PHATA POSTER NIKHLA HERO is its clean, enjoyable comedy (away from sex and double meaning stuff), along with many funny, entertaining dialogues which instantly reminds you of the director's first comic movie released almost two decades back. Yes, the film cannot be termed as a great entertainer or a perfect comedy due to its many drawbacks mostly visible post intermission. Yet I would like to rate it much more than Santoshi's last APKGK for the only reason that it did reach quite close to the unique ANDAZ APNA APNA in its few scenes thankfully.

Now coming to the INSPIRATION Section of the review, 1. The title of the film is taken from a dialogue of HERO HIRALAL (1988) in which Naseeruddin Shah comes out tearing a film's poster and says the same words.

2. The very first scene of the film dealing with a self confessed traffic challaan is straight out of FERRARI KI SAWAARI (2012) wherein Sharman Joshi does the same act as done by Padmini Kolhapure.

3. Most importantly (as also confessed in a dialogue too), the whole story idea of PHATA POSTER NIKHLA HERO has been inspired from MUNNA BHAI MBBS with the theme of Doctor being replaced by an Inspector. To elaborate it further, as seen in Munna Bhai film, here the hero's mother thinks that her son has become an Inspector and she is coming to visit him in the town. Knowing this, the hero becomes a fake inspector and all his friends play different roles of a hawaldaar, a social worker and more to support the inspector's act.

Anyway, if you loved watching AJAB PREM KI GHAZAB KAHANI a lot, then you are sure going to enjoy PHATA POSTER NIKHLA HERO too as a one-time watch, particularly for all its entertaining funny moments in the first half. So just keep that yardstick in mind and make your own decision for the coming weekend.

In the contemporary bollywood, there are three ways to make a movie hit: sex,cast or making a masala flick. This movie has last two alluded elements. It is funny and emotional. As is being said that it is a tribute to two of bollywood's blockbusters DON and MUNNA BHAI M.B.B.S, you'll find half of the half part and half of the last part of the movie as intermingling of said movies. You'll also find that as in funny movies of Rajkumar Santoshi the element of comic fighting is prevalent through out the movie. Story: As I told that this story is intermixing of two movies. Despite of copying,film has got some genuine ideas and stuff. 5/10 I will award to the story.

Acting: Shahid kapoor has once again proved that no doubt he's a verstile actor and can justify every role given to him. Funny expressions can make you laugh even you may fall from your seats and said expressions can make you cry. I'll give 8/10 to the acting.

In an era when Bollywood movies are becoming bolder with new treatment and storyline and are getting plethora of kudos for it ,it is actually quite a risky business to follow the old school way of movie making.Yes you do get all the clichéd characters,songs out of sequence,over the top acting and intermixing of a few Bollywood plots but what stands out for the movie at least for the first part is that it has got its soul in the right place.In contemporary times the plot of a movie gets praised just for showing a couple of intimate scenes (and promoted as pathbreaking) and live in relationships this movie tries what others have forgotten,that is a movie which you could watch with your entire family without being embarrassed .Talking about the movie the first half is better than the second which looses what already was a thin plot.Still the movie will make you laugh(the guffaws of audience in the cinema hall at least proves so).Overall the movie stands on the thin line of passable vs watchable,personally born in late 80's having grown up watching films with my family throughout I found the movie a nice refresher.If you have free time go out with your family and enjoy this movie.

6+1 ..extra one for being a clean family entertainer (pathbreaking for contemporary times i guess!!!)