Desi Galaxy

You may call him a plagiarist but I am a huge fan of Priyadarshan, the director who gave us hindi movies like Gardish, Virasat and Hera Pheri. If you compare Gardish and Virasat to Hera Pheri and Muskurahat you would be truly surprised to find out how versatile he is. But it seems like he has now focused on comedy movies only. Thats fine by me, I love all his comedy movies and I was anxiously waiting for Mere Baap Pehle Aap. It looked like a typical Priyadarshan movie with his usual team of actors Akshaye Khanna, Paresh Rawal, Om puri and Rajpal Yadav.

I am disappointed. The movie is just below average, you won’t regret that you saw this movie but you are not going to add it up to your list of favorite Priyadarshan comedies. First of all the movie has no story at all, the plot was loose and it looked like that Priyadarsha tried to put together three movies in one go. At first there is a story of a loving father and an authoritarian son, the father often puts his son in uncomfortable situations where he is humiliated and embarrassed by his father’s adventures. He loves his father but he thinks that his father’s friend Om puri is spoiling his father. Now I am not a film maker but I feel that if Priyadarshan had worked on this plot line alone he might have come out with one hilarious movie.

But there is another parallel story of a girl who makes prank calls to Akshay Khanna and claims to be his wife. The girl’s role is played by Genelia D’Souza. Genelia is a Tamil super star. Her over joyed expressions were a bit annoying. You would think that these prank calls would develop into a non stop series of laughs. But unfortunately this plot ends too soon.

Now you start to get worried, Does this movie have any story at all? you wonder. A new plot line begins where the Father finds his long lost lover. Now the son tries to get his father married. This plot works out in next fifteen to twenty minutes and the father is all set to marry the woman he loved. Now what? Priyadarshan then injects a new character to create a twist in the story during last few minutes and then all goes well and film ends with the main characters living happily ever after.

Still there are some moments in the movie which are enjoyable. Priyadarshan is really good at creating memorable and strong characters. In this movie he brings us Inspector Bhawani a woman police inspector. Who often finds the father in humiliating situations and often takes him to the police station on charges of obsene acts at public places. The role of Inspector Bhawani is played by Archana Puran Singh and she is brilliant as always. But since there were so many plots in the movie (or none at all) Piryadarshan failed to provide to all the characters to their full ability. Om Puri, Archana Puran Singh and Rajpal Yadav are almost wasted in the movie. Even though each and every character in the movie was beautiful and the actors did the justice with their roles but Priyadarshan failed miserably to create comic situations, creating climax and story development.