Hera Pheri isn’t the greatest franchise to come out of Bollywood, and of course after that godforsaken second film, any fan of the 2000 film wouldn’t really care about an announcement of a Hera Pheri 3 to be directed by Indra Kumar.
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From a commerce point-of-view, franchise films are a no-brainer. Because, if you look at the last year, most of the films in the 100+ crore club like Baaghi 2, Tiger Zinda Hai, Jolly LLB 2 or Golmaal Again originate from one dumb, mediocre film. The Bhatts have managed to build a studio for themselves and a career for Emraan Hashmi – thanks to this franchise formula. But, it’s different with Hera Pheri – because that first film was without doubt, one of Bollywood’s funniest films in the 90s.
And it’s painful for some of us, to see the magical camaraderie of Baburao, Shyam and Raju turned into yet another ‘money-spinning’ franchise. Directed by Priyadarshan, the 2000 film surely borrowed a lot of its elements from 1971 TV movie See The Man Run, and 1998’s The Big Lebowski, but it managed to ‘Indianise’ a lot of it in its Borivali setting. Whether it was Baburao’s ‘Uthlaa Le Re Baba‘, Raju’s ‘Khot Hai Iske Mann Mein‘ or Shyam’s ‘Gaana Sunaayi Diya Aapko?‘ – most of the film’s one-liners found a cult status. The fans of the 2000 film love it to such an extent, that Baburao’s scenes around the telephone continue to be a favourite with today’s meme generation.
Which is why in spite of all the water under the bridge, it might still irk some of us to find out that a director like Indra Kumar will be directing the franchise’s third film. He is the man behind some of the most melodramatic films from the 1990s like – Beta, Raja, Ishq (THAT second half!!!) and Mann. He’s also the man trying to stay afloat with the help of two abominable film franchises (even by the low standards) in Bollywood – Dhamaal and Masti. One confuses childish humour for child-like, while the other is neck deep in sexual innuendos and school boy puns. Quite opposite to the sensibility of that first Hera Pheri movie.
Hera Pheri, directed by Priyadarshan, is a landmark because of how it mined ‘clean humour’ out of a few cascading events. Balanced with finesse till the very end, it would all come down in the film’s climax – and also become a ‘formula’ for many of Priyadarshan’s films in the next few years (Hungama, Hulchul etc). Some of the fan-boys will be worried about finding Baburao make a lame sexual pun, or see Shyam ogling at a woman’s cleavage in Indra Kumar’s Hera Pheri 3.
The third film would also miss (the late) Neeraj Vora – the man responsible for genius dialogues like ‘Kabeera Speaking, mast naam hai re!’ Vora, and who directed the second film (after generously borrowing from Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels).
While Bollywood will make sure and turn Hera Pheri 3 into another 100-crore entity, let’s hope the film will be distinguishable from Anees Bazmee’s Welcome films or Indra Kumar’s own puerile franchises. The world of Hera Pheri is too precious to be traded for a few bucks.
