Should Munnabhai Retire?
Don’t get me wrong. I like Munnabhai and Circuit, but it is not that great as people are making it out. People have been saying that Munnabhia typifies Hrishikesh Mukherjee genre. In a sense, yes, it does. But there is something missing. And it is far more a fairy tale than a Hrishikesh Mukherjee Film.
So far in both episodes of Munnabhai, I did not like how Bomani Irani’s character were sketched and the characters seemed more like fake. He was brilliant in it, however, I just could not connect with the characters. In both movies it was his gimmicks (for example, laughter therapy) made people laugh. He did not make people laugh! He was not Bhavani Shankar. This kind of movies need a Bhavani Shankar and not a masala character. Bhavani Shankar is one of the (if not THE) character that is sketched out perfectly. He has all the traits and yet, he is perfectly balanced. It was him who made people laugh and not one-liners or other gimmicks.
Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s movies never had (well, not in comedy films) any mushy-senti-melodramatic scenes. He would not have any cringe-worthy scenes in his movies either. Where as there are bundles of those kinds of scenes in both MBBS and Lage Raho. For example, in MBBS the Parsi doctor thanking Munnabhai for saving his pa and then Jimmy begging Munnabhai to save his life. And I was like, kyaa Mamu! Munnabhai lacks total authentic feel.
Then the climax; they cannot get any more unreal than that. How can the climax in a comedy film be sad? Beats me! I have always walked out of the cinema or stopped the DVD before the ending cos it so predictable, lame and it makes me unbelievably angry. In Hrishikesh Mukherjee the ending scene were well thought out and you would leave the cinema with the ending scene in your mind. They should watch ending of Basu Chatterjie’s ‘Khatta Meetha’.
It does not have a repeat value. Okay, you would watch it now and then, but not without forwarding those awkward scenes. Where as Hrishikesh Mukherjee movies are timeless classics.
Munnabhai series is smartly manufactured; it follows same typical ‘Bollywood’ formulae (i.e first half: flirt; before interval: A bang; After Interval: Bore the Advance; Climax: A Bang; Ending: A fart) and more importantly, the movie has a good-feel to it. That’s about it. It is neither a comedy film nor a Hrishikesh Mukherjee type of movie.
And now Munnabhai & Co. are going to ‘Umrica’ – it seems like they are going to take mockery of the language, people and culture. Sounds like a senty-mushy-melodramatic-tapori version of ‘Borat’, eh? I think, it has high potential to be very lame and dud. I am a bit skeptical about this one.
So, back to the question, should Munnabhai retire? I think he should if he is going to come up same predictable stuffs and preachy. Or he should do a Dada or a Zak (i.e work on finely tuning the script/characters/etc in the workshop and then come to me. if i am happy i will give you the green light ;) )
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
@HG…humne tera kiya bigada hai that u want Munnabhai to retire. Anyway, its shit all the way with dhoom,umrao jaan,krish…n god knows what all. Now u want Munnabhai to retire also…ise to baksh de. What else we will watch otherwise!!!
lol, i do not deny that Munnabhai is much better than those movies, but it has potential to be great and it is not fulfilling that, imo. all i want is Munnabhai to be perfect but it can’t be if they keep coming back without any real thought. And common, there are other good (hindi) movies out there..
Hi,
Please don’t run down a masterpiece just for the sake of it. The Boman Irani character, the oneliners, the dialogues, everything made people laugh… and I am yet to meet someone who found the movie predictable or unnecessarily preachy. Please reserve ur comments for Karan Johar and Yashraj films.
As for me, I would be waiting for its sequel.
saurab, i do not think it is a masterpiece. it is a decent movie, though. and the makers (also audience) are content with that when the series could be much much better than that – which irks me a bit.
also i do not agree with Munnabhai getting compared with Hrishda’s movies since they are quite different, so just pointed out a few reasons why i think that.
Well I guess its unfair to compare Hrishi da with Raju Hirani, unfair to Raju and unfair to Hrishi Da, We all know Boman cant be Bhavani Shankar because, no matter how good Boman Irani was but he cant be anyway near to Uttapal Dutt. The charactor of Bhavani Shanker was skeched perfectly was of Lucky Sing it was brilliant. See, Hrishi Da was master in his art and Raju is smart in it, but did u dislikes Munnabhai movies???
Bullseye,
i wanted to mention the samething, perhaps thought
wud get a troll here,
now 1st part was gud, lage raho was stupid, no offense meant for anybody who liked it,
they took the senti things too far in the 2nd part, with the police officer cryin and stuff…
now yaar aisa nahin hota zindagi mein,
and another fact, munna bhai has become a brand, tats wat we hear right,
and the producer wants to make money out of this brand,
so the sequels go on, ab yaar munna bhai is no Mr Bean, to get all sequels right,
i m dead sure the third part is goin to be all about NRI’s goin emotional abt their beloved mother india, and how they miss their own country,
it is goin to be preachy, and will again be a hit for sure,
but one thing, if u remove boman irani out of munna bhai,
then it will be even worse,
boman was gr8 in both parts, he has been closest to reality in both parts of all characters
Sorry mate…
But I think they should continue… I agree about the melodrama part, but again melodrama makes it universally appealing… I think Munnabhai series is commercial cinema at its best, where we can laugh, cry, sing, dance etc…
How can you compare Hrishikesh Mukherjee movies with munnabhai?
i have not got anything against Boman Iran’s acting in Munnabhai series. What I did not like was the character Lucky Singh and Dr. Asthana. He was shown as an egoistic bastard and at the end unexpectedly he becomes mellowed. I mean, kya hum mamu hain?
Kaafir, do not worry about getting trolled. just post your views and you should be fine as long as you do not get personal.., but then you would not what people would find personal…. i say, forget about all that and just post your views.
indianoguy, i think, Lagaan was commercial cinema at its best. It had all! I am only comparing to show that they are different apart, since a lot of people think Munnabhai falls under ‘Hrishda’ genre.
Hi HG,
with all due respects to Hrishida, i would like
to ask you, what is ur opinion about ‘jhoot bole
kauva kaate’?…which was directed by the same
person who directed some of my favourite
films…..at the same time Mr.Hirani has been
super consistent in his first two films….and i
disagree with u when u say that a sequel to
munabhai should not be made….in fact the cncept
of munna & circuit going to america sounds very
interesting and i am waiting for the same.
Raaj
it was rubbish/shite.
Without them being any creative the series is still funny in parts, so if they do a bit of creative thinking and delete all the bad habits (i.e cringe-worthy scenes) then don’t you think it could be much better? But no, they are going same way as Yash Raj/Karan Johar path i.e manufacturing rather than making a film.
Till now it seemed to me that I was the only one who thought that those mushy Jimmy Shergill related scenes seemed forced and even fake.
Also I never understood, how Boman Irani’s character in the Munnabhai MBBS is considered as a comic character(always got nominated as one). There was nothing comic in it, if anything then maybe negative character.
I dont think Munnabhai films were masterpieces, they are decent and with the second one being much better than the first. First one I believe is a bit overrated. There were quite a few scenes in the first which were predictable.
i agree with saurabh and pheonixnu…
its a brilliant film…
and despite the presence of all predictable elements in the narrative – it works…
i am an indie-filmmaker in NY – been here for 10+ years… LAGE RAHO MUNNABHAI – the movie worked here big time…
and i applaud RHirani and AJOSHI for thinking of something like this…
i am jealous – y couldnt i think of something brilliant like LRMunnabhai and RDBasanti…
and going by the audience reaction to M3 promo during EKLAYA…
desi souls cant wait for MB3 enough…
jmd ~
Analysis beyond a point leads to Paralysis
Y can’t u just enjoy the movie without being too critical.
As far as i know munnabhai has great repeat value.
Yes, Hrishida’s movies were amazing but y to belittle Mr Hirani.
Has he claimed to be Hrishida?
Criticism should always be constructive.
Y don’t u suggest some story for Munnabhai 3.
I would conclude by saying it is easier to spot a daag on a clean shirt.
I would rather admire the shirt than criticise the daag.
anuj, that was only one example. there are quite few of scenes like that.
manan singh katohora, it partly worked for me, and i have stated the reasons in the post.
kartik shah, i am only comparing because people/media think its like Hrishda’s movies, but it is not. i am not just comparing for just sake of it. and i am being a bit critical cos i believe the series could be much better if they worked harder for it. and if there is a maakhi in your tea – would you drink it?
Hello Honhaar Goonda,
I sincerely feel that the movies that had repeat value in the last 5 years are the Munnabhai movies. (I watched RDB 4 times in the first week, but I think I was an exception). But somehow the authenticity that you are expecting seems a bit far-fetched to me. He never claimed that he is making realistic movies. The explaination that Mr.Hirani gave in the movie for the hallucination didn’t convince me completely, but I left it there and the movie was fantastic. I am just curious as to what movies you liked in the last 4-5 years?
erm rocko, in last four-five years?! there are so many movies, but i will mention a few movies that i can watch without forwarding any seconds of the film.. Swades, Socha Na Tha, Home Delivery, Iqbal, Ab Tak Chapan, D, Sarkar, Yuva,….
anyway, if munnbhai did not not have any melodramatic scenes and the climax/ending was something good, then i would have liked the movie as much as most of you people do.
i agree .. inspector crying scene(and that too straight out from 80’s trash melodrama expression).. was so disgusting , no actually apalling… i was quite embarrassed to watch it .. i think that character and the ones in the barber shop are not real … why do they have to go overboard .. it was an ok movie .. i laughed in Khosla Ka…. i was waiting for the humor in this one.. going to stay away from big banner movies for a looong time
Honhaar, Did you like Home Delivery….I didnt see the movie but surprised that you mentioned the movie that topped all the lists for worst movies of that year. Its a personal choice, but no offense meant. Just wanted to mention the movies that I loved last year.
1. RDB
2. LRMB
3. OMKARA
4. GOLMAAL: I saw this movie on a DVD with zero expectations. But I loved it completely. All the four characters were fun. So eagerly waiting for part-2. I always felt that Rohit shetty is very talented.
5. Khosla ga Ghosla
6. Dor
7. Jaan-e-mann
uhhh golmaal is gonna have a part 2?? wasn’t the agony of part 1 enough?
i know Home Delivery was classified as the worst movie of year 2005 but i liked it – i sort of connected to it.
i forgot about RDB – I can see that movie without forwarding any bits. I have not seen Khosla Ka Ghosla yet but it is a movie that i think I would like.
Golmaal was the worst movie I saw last year.
Rocko, totaly agree with ur comments regarding ‘Golmaal’.
Had no expectation whatsoever, and didn’t even mind them taking the mick outa ‘Black’ which I loved btw!
‘Golmaal’ had some very impressive editing too.. I just loved the way the shots were edited. Really cool!
And it is a genuinely funny film.
Im surprised you don’t think so Honhaar??
This ‘Home Delivery’ I have yet to see.
Actually im going to give it a look as Honhaar speaks so highly of it!
Now if only ppl did the same with ‘Y.H.T.K.H’!
My prof. of Physics in Std 12 used to tell us when we used to disagree with some laws or theories of some scientists
“You come up with a better theory and I will teach u that henceforth”
The same applies to you when u say more hard work should be applied.
My friend, please specify what type of hard work Who knows ur “Bright” views will be incorporated and we might have you as a new script writer (like Mr abhijat Joshi ) working with Mr Hirani.
I totally agree Munna BHAI should retire.
The 1st one was good timepass thanks mostly to Arshad Warsi’s huge acting talent. But the sequel was a embarrassment.
Has Munna Bhai joined some Govt. Job? Why talks of his retirements?;)
Retire dusre characters hua karte hain, Munna Bhai jaise characters nahin. He is serial matterial like Cartoon characters, Phantom, Mandreks, Flash Gordon etc etc. How he can retire.
everytime new situations and new stories but same character.He is going to live longer.
i am for MUNNABHAI…i felt Raj Kumar Hirani is doing a good job with this series & i am eagerly waiting for the 3rd Munnabhai…
U think Munnabhai is just ‘decent’ and you sort of connected to ‘Home Delivery’ ?
~X(
yes. i can sit through ‘Home Delivery’ without forwarding any scenes, where as i would have to forward a few scenes in both Munnabhai MBBS and Lage Raho Munnabhai. Some of those scenes make me cringe.
i judge movies by.. how many scenes would i forward? if none, then it is good. if it is only a few scenes, then it is decent. if i finish the 3 hours movie in 3 minutes and 53 seconds, then it is crap.
i should have compared it with Khosla Ka Ghosla, but only saw the movie last week. i did not have anything to forward – watched it from opening credits to the end credits. i loved it. i saw the film twice in a day!
KHOSLA KA GHOSLA is the greatest movie of last 10 years….:):):)