Review: Heyy Babyy - Hindustan Times
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Review: Heyy Babyy

None | ByKhalid Mohamed., Mumbai
Jun 07, 2012 04:24 PM IST

Sajid Khan’s direction is more dependent on lavish resources and star value than a distinctive style of storytelling in the film, writes Khalid Mohamed.

Heyy Babyy
Cast:
Akshay Kumar, Riteish Kumar, Fardeen Khan, Vidya Balan
Direction: Sajid Khan
Rating: **

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HT Image

Don’t nappy, be happy. Legs-lips-`n’-limbs of bimbos are the obsessions of three blokes, one of whom even croaks, “I carry more condoms than money in my pockets,” rolling his merry-go-round eyes out of their sockets. Hee hee?

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Just about. But you also go chhee chee as Heyy Babyy, directed by Sajid Khan, indulges in execrable humour, striving to set off mirth ripples with dirty talk about underpants (not washed for a week, it seems), toilet humour and nipples. Enough to make you want to run out for a tipple.

So okay, Mr Khan may have shouted himself hoarse that he hasn’t ripped off Hollywood’s Three Men and a Baby (technically he may be correct, because he could have just ransacked the original French version). Hello, but till the intermission point it’s nothing but that – milking laughs out of emergency baby feeds, poop and what the dialogue innovatively calls “bummies.” Hang on to your groaning tummies.

Aaah but gangs of geeks, going on about their sex drive, have been whooping it up of late, from the masti ki pathshalas of David Dhawan, Indra Kumar and Priyardarshan. Comedies, making women out to be sex objects, sell. They’re to be taken deliriously, not seriously – just a brunch of joke-`n’-junk food. Dig in, digest the watchamacallit, never mind the acidity and burps. Sab chalta hai.

Or should that be daudta hai? The three sex machines (Akshay Kumar, Riteish Deshmukh, Fardeen Khan), are bedding blondes, red-heads and brunettes in Sydney. Holy kidney? And a baby girl is left at their doorstep. Either of the trio could be the dad, and so there they go – in ancient Keystone Cops-style fast motion – feeding the darling but never taking her out a rather uncomfy cot. Yikes.

Trouble ahead: abruptly the script goes ‘original’. Enter the mom (Vidya Balan looking sterner than a prison warden), flashbacks ensue, and there’s much huffing-`n’-puffing. In any case, it isn’t quite comprehensible how she could have even risked leaving her child to the care of three bumblers. Incidentally, the eight-month-old is left out in the rain, rushed to an Indian doctor (so, no subtitles are needed) and survives. “It’s a miracle!” beams the doc. Squawk.

Instead of tittering nervously, you now feel like a coolie carrying a heavy-duty load. The three men, reformed by their nanha farishta, want her back. Mom signs up a weird contract, Boman Irani fetches up to ham, and the baby shebang becomes a sham. Stern mom, in a hideous wardrobe (ensembles printed with circles and op-art) hisses, softens and hisses. And then she zooms off with her babyy, seated at long last in a cool pram. No free lollipops for guessing the rest. Yes, yes, it’s time-pass and all that but not of the variety that separates the intelligent from the trite.

Sajid Khan’s direction is more dependent on lavish resources and star value than a distinctive style of storytelling (story?). Those reaction shots of the child are clumsy, often suggesting that they were filmed randomly.

And pray why Sydney? Never mind. How come the mom also stays in the same city in what looks like a hotel or a health spa? Why does her dad go dotty over a potential son-in-law, trilling “I like him, I like him.” Logic – a must even in knockabout slapstick – is conspicuous by its absence.

The music score by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy is nothing to hum about; the cinematography is patchy and the screenplay’s latter-half is particularly laboured.

Of the cast, Akshay Kumar has an appealing flair for the light-hearted. Riteish Deshmukh is reliably likeable.. but could he please quit blinking like a neon sign out of order? Fardeen Khan needs to be kept far away from potato salad buffets. Vidya Balan is wasted.

So heyy, this one’s far from okayy. Aapyy ka Surrooryy was funnier.

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