Nov 23 2015

Sajid Khan and his Humshakals

by   Shriram Iyengar

From the cacophonous 'Heyy Babby' to the disastrous 'Humshakals', Sajid Khan has had a mixed ride. His style of cinema veers from the improbable to the impossible. Yet, there are a few ideas that even the impossible Sajid Khan cannot conceive. Here are four plots that belong somewhere else but ended up in his clumsy hands.

1 Heyy Babby

It was his very first venture that put Sajid Khan on the platform of superhit filmmakers. Starring Akshay Kumar, Riteish Deshmukh and Fardeen Khan alongside a cute little kid. The struggles of the three grown men to tame a child was free ammo for slapstick comedy and found a ready audience. That the entire plot was taken from the 1987 Hollywood hit 'Three Men and a Baby' hardly seemed to matter.

2 Housefull

Sajid claimed this film to be his tribute to the legends Manmohan Desai and Hrishikesh Mukherjee. Thankfully, neither of them watched this horrible slapstick comedy.Starring his lucky mascots Akshay Kumar and Riteish Deshmukh, Housefull was based on the Tamil comedy 'Kaathala Kaathala' which starred Prabhu Deva and Kamal Hassan. The film picked up its profits, but critics were not smiling.

3 Housefull 2

If one was not enough, Sajid had to go ahead and make Housefull 2. This time he travelled to the other side of the divide and stole the plot of a Malayalam movie 'Mattupetti Macchan'. With Rishi Kapoor, Randhir Kapoor, Mithun Chakraborty, Johhny Lever, and Ranjeet the film was loaded with star power. It did not help. The film tanked without much noise.

4 Himmatwala

If audiences hoped that successive flops would dissuade Sajid from trying anymore remakes, they couldn't be more wrong. He completed his hattrick with the remake of the 80s' cult classic 'Himmatwala'. Ajay Devgn and Tamannah took up the mantles of Jeetendra and Sridevi in the original. Even the songs 'Taki O Taki' and 'Nainon me Sapna' were replayed in the film. That proved to be the high noon. The 80s hangover proved fatal for the movie as it bit the dust again.