Thrice the fun in Humshakals

(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) With the three male leads coming in triplicate roles sajid khan�s comic caper humshakals promises to be a laugh-riot thrice over.

when the team of humshakals walked into the khaleej times office last thursday they had eyes only for our ‘wall of fame’ featuring city times’ celeb covers from across the years. “look at the eyes...there is something about him. he has got beautiful eyes... took the world by storm” (sic) saif ali khan commented while admiring a picture of al pacino. he later shifted his attention towards a poster featuring malaika arora khan saying “malaika is great fun. she looks great even now. how old is she?” when esha gupta retorted she had no idea he turned his attention to a shot of abhishek bachchan asking “can someone please explain to me why his jacket is so short???”

while saif was busy looking at the posters esha gupta was inquiring about tamannaah bhatia’s competitors from the south indian film industry to which she replied “there is samantha and me. shruti hassan is also doing quite well.”

it took some time before saif joined his co-stars riteish deshmukh esha gupta tamannaah bhatia ram kapoor and director sajid khan to have a chat with city times.

“i do not have an issue potentially making an a** of myself. it does not worry me” said the national award winning actor when asked how he approached his character in the film. “i have found that the basic level of comedy comes easy to me and a great comedy is something else and sajid khan’s comedy is also something else. this film is different from anything that i have done so far. you need to have knowledge of commercial cinema to imitate actors like rajendra kumar my father-in-law and others.” with movies like heyy babyy (2007) housefull (2010) housefull 2 (2012) and himmatwala (2013) it is understood that sajid khan movies are full of pedestrian comedy excessive melodrama and juvenile humour. and saif seems to have aligned himself completely with his director’s vision.

so how did saif’s wife kareena kapoor respond when she learnt that saif would be imitating her father? “imitation is the highest form of flattery and sajid is great friends with my father-in-law. so it comes with great respect and a sense of humour. kareena reacted by saying ‘oh god saif i think sajid is making too much fun of my family but i am sure its really funny.’ and then she showed me how she imitates her father. i also made her say the line (from the movie). it’s all harmless.”

describing the film that releases in the uae this weekend saif said “it’s a crazy sajid khan comedy kind of film. he has worked extra hard on this because he felt that he has a point to prove to the world.” bollywood has so far played around with double roles to great comic effects and in humshakals sajid khan takes it to another level by having two pairs of lookalikes each for the three leads - the confusion and mayham that it results will hopefully provide ample fun for the viewers.

considering the fact that in most of sajid khan’s films the heroines do not have much of a role to play we asked the cast where the girls fit into the storyline and saif immediately defended the presence of esha tamannaah and bipasha basu (who has been conspiciously absent from all the promos so far due to an alleged fallout with the director) by saying: “girls play an important part in the film. they react to various situations.” okay saif. we hear you.

and as if three girls weren’t enough to up the glamour quotient a central part of the movie features the men dressed as females. ritesh even borrowed his wife genelia’s skirt for one scene but the actor sounded a bit embarrassed about the same: “i think it is important for me to make this clear. when i was asked to do this i said ‘no’ but later i thought of doing it just for the heck of it; since there is a situation where we need to do this. so one thing i said was ‘i will dress up as a woman only if saif too dresses up as woman.’ and i was told that saif and ram will also dress up as women so i was like ‘let’s go and try and have fun’. as long as it’s going to put a smile on people’s face and make the situation look funny when a male saif is flirting with the female me and the male me is flirting with the female saif and the male ram is flirting with himself. i think it should bring in some laughter!”

famous television actor ram kapoor has made a mark for himself by doing character roles in films like hazaaron khwahishein aisi (2003) and udaan (2010) and this time he is ready to dabble in comedy. “i have three characters to play. i play the mama (uncle) i am the bad guy the mad guy and also the sad guy. my second character is the mental patient who is mentally like seven years old but in this big body of mine.”

esha gupta who looked stunning in a malini ramani outfit said that she was excited to have a movie release after a gap of around two years. “for me this kind of comedy works really well. in between chakravyuh (2012) and this film i did not get anything great so i was waiting for something interesting.”

tamannaah bhatia who has already worked with sajid in himmatwala spoke about her shooting experience with bollywood biggies. “what i love about sajid’s set is that he will never have everybody doing their own thing. everyone would be together and hanging out together.”

sajid khan revealed to us that the team had initially planned to shoot the film in dubai. “we were to shoot humshakals here but due to some issue we had to go to mauritius. i did my recce here. so you can say i almost shot in dubai.”

the director opened up that the failure of his last project himmatwala a film whose humour was thumbed down by critics calling it regressive and plain pedestrian made him realise that he should not be too arrogant about box office figures.

“it made me realise that everybody has good and bad days. i had a bad year and perhaps one must not be too arrogant about box office figures. i realised i should do comedy films and himmatwala was not a comedy film.”

when you have a multi-star team promoting a movie ahead of its release with the exception of one team member rumours are bound to fly. and it is the same with humshakals. bipasha basu who plays one among the three glamour gals in the film has been conspicuous by her absence from the movie’s various promotional activities. rumour has it that bipasha felt her character was being sidelined due to sajid khan’s proximity to tamannaah during the shoot. when asked about the same during their visit to the khaleej times office sajid khan got a bit testy and it was left to the dapper saif ali khan to rise to the occasion with a candid answer which we appreciate. “i do not know. i can either tell the truth or some pr kind of answer. i think she must feel maybe..sometimes when there is a multi starrer everyone has a certain part to play and i think she is wonderful in the film and has played her part really well and sajid is happy with the way things have turned out. but perhaps she was expecting something different somewhere either in terms of treatment or role. i could only guess. i have not spoken to her. i do not know. but if there is something that has upset her clearly where she feels that she does not want to be part of the team which is sad. we shall miss her but we are okay. we are doing fine.”

why so fidgety sajid?

we are used to bollywood stars and directors talking up their films ahead of their release but sajid khan went one step further when he kept telling us to be kind while reviewing humshakals. considering his previous films have met with bad reviews from critics could it be a case of insecurity plaguing the director?

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