This is India's funniest movie? Andaz Apna Apna

It's a strange feeling when you find yourself disagreeing vehemently with web posts by people you don't know and will never meet, such as the opinion expressed by someone about this movie on imdb; it's a less strange but still puzzling thing to find yourself once again going "Huh?" when told that a certain movie is a don't-miss, perhaps one of a country's finest.

Keeping the advice of Thumper, at least to start with, I'll say something nice. I genuinely enjoyed seeing Aamir Khan go to ridiculous lengths for ridiculous bits. I was grateful for his dance moves, especially the arm-fling on top of the bus. (Not quite as good as SRK's in Dil Se, of course, but that's a train, so there's no comparison.) The opening sequence with Juhi, Govinda, and name-dropping was truly inspired - I can't tell you why it was so much funnier than the movie industry jokes in the Karisma-Abhishek mess a few films back, but it was. Trust me. I also like a good tongue-in-cheek hair-flip, and Juhi made me proud.

Regarding the plot, I have nothing to say that you can't observe for yourself just as easily. If you haven't seen the movie, just know it's a wacky scheme done wackily. I warned you.

Now. I am limiting myself to just three negatives. With great glee I put this disc in my computer to get screen captures, and once I started it was hard to know where to stop. These are the three that made the cut - not only because they are funny, but also because I think the picture can really help my point. Some things, like a squad of armed goons standing around during the end fight, or a mad scramble for diamonds, or voiceovers narrating our protagonists' assessment of each other's lies, cannot be done justice in stills.

Regular readers know how I do enjoy the mid-1990s fashions of Bollywood, and poor Karisma Kapoor seems to get caught in lots of them. Here she is sporting...I don't know what this is - and it could use a good name, if anyone can come up with one. Black mock turtleneck, long sleeves, with suspenders, frayed white daisy dukes, and black tights with a stripe up the side? With those crappy dollar store metal circle earrings, whose white paint is going to chip off at any second, and boots, I think? I read somewhere that Karisma and Raveena ended up being archrivals, and I like to think that these outfits resulted from Raveena slipping the costume designer something to make it work out in her favor - she has some bad outfits, but they're just sort of Dynasty-excess bad, not genuine crimes against fashion. It's like Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall ten years early.


Next up: Karisma's hair. Raveena's face here says it all, but, to be fair, Karisma's expression mirrors my own to some of Raveena's dos (even this one, scrunchy and all), so it all comes out even, as another childhood favorite cartoon animal would say (Frances the badger, whom no one else ever remembers). But as with clothes, Raveena gets glam or vampy insane hair, where poor Karisma gets dorky twin french braids or claw bangs. My credentials on this front - I come from a small town in central Illinois and was in junior high and high school in the late 1980s and early 1990s - are beyond reproach. I know from big bangs.


And, finally, Crime Master Gogo (Shakti Kapoor) and Prem (Salman) demonstrate how to fight by...thrusting. Yes. I don't think I'm the type to find sex everywhere I look (unless distracted by an exceptionally professorial elbow-patch jacket), but this was really odd.


Aside to Salman: thank you for keeping your clothes on. And for sporting such a very, very choice mullet. Who'd have thunk it - eleven years later, here you are, getting hair implants. How time and shirts fly....