Film: Heyy Babyy

Cast: Akshay Kumar, Fardeen Khan, Riteish Deshmukh, Vidya Balan, Boman Irani

Special Appearance: Shah Rukh Khan, Anupam Kher, Aarti Chhabria, Hrishita Bhatt, Amisha Patel, Koena Mitra, Dia Mirza, Minissha Lamba, Shamita Shetty, Neha Dhupia, Malaika Arora, Amrita Arora, Amrita Rao, Tara Sharma, Riya Sen, Sophie Chaudhary and Masumi Makhija

Director: Sajid Khan

Producer: Sajid Nadiadwalla

Rating: 3.5/5

This comic caper revolves around three men and a baby. Though not entirely a replica of the English film – Three Men and a Baby; Heyy Babyy does borrow instances from it.

Three bachelors Aroush (Akshay Kumar), Tanmay (Riteish Deshmukh) and Al (Fardeen Khan) chase everything in skirts. While Aroush works at a health club, Tanmay entertains kids at parties in his Eddy Teddy avatar. All Al does for a living apart is place bets on cricket matches. Their life is one big party sans commitments… that’s until a baby girl is left at their doorsteps.

With the responsibility of a baby on their heads now, the three bachelors find themselves in a total mess literally. What’s more, with their various conquests through the length and breadth of Sydney, neither of them knows who, amongst them, has fathered the child.

However only after they are on the verge of losing the baby, do they realize how much they’ve come to adore her. That’s when the gorgeous mommy Esha (Vidya Balan) steps in and decides to take her bundle of joy away from the three self pronounced daddies.

One of them has broken her heart and now she is in no mood to cater to their emotions. Until now, you don’t know the reason behind the baby being left at their doorsteps in the first place. However, this dilemma gets cleared even as you ask the question!

While we’ve seen the trio in a handful of comedy films lately, this one’s an out and out entertainer too. The actors have you in splits and more often than not leave you craving for more… only that “more” comes in spurts and is not entirely satisfying. One hopes for a sprinkle of more humour from funny man Sajid Khan.

That said and done, Khan does a decent job for his debut film, which is laced with all the right ingredients that make for an entertainer. The first half is definitely more entertaining than the latter. Although there are some flaws in the screenplay. For example: somewhere down the line, the trio’s sole mandate becomes the baby alone… their jobs be dammed. Another bizarre thing is when you see Fardeen rattle away lines in ‘shudh’ Hindi, when he portrays the immortal ‘Professor Parimal Tripathi’ from Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Chupke Chupke. Forgotten was the time when he didn’t know what ‘napunsak’ (impotent) meant earlier on in the film.

The beginning of the second half takes you into flashback mode and enlightens the audience with the relationship that one of the bachelors shared with Esha. Here, it tends to get a bit of a drag and one waits for it to get done with.

Post this, it’s up to the three guys to make sure their baby ‘Angel’ comes back to them. What follows are a series of lame attempts by the trio with the aid of Esha’s father (Boman Irani) to make sure that they are one big happy family at the end of it all.

Akshay manages to strike a chord with his emotional scenes. You tend to cry with him and laugh at his antics. On the other hand, Riteish is a natural and his Marathi dialogues have you in splits. The ‘gay’ pun lines delivered by him are, but of course, intended. Of Fardeen Khan, it can be safely said that the actor has come a long way from his ‘Khushi’ days. He no longer seems stiff and awkward and plays his part with confidence.

Vidya Balan passes in her glam avatar, which she portrays for the first time on big screen… though one feels she could have been made to look better. On the other hand, keeping in mind Boman Irani’s caliber, his character sketch is ho-hum and hence he tends to get wasted in the film. There is nothing challenging in his role… any other actor could well have been in his place. The highlight of course is Shah Rukh Khan who looks as lean as ever and brings in that extra energy for the wee-bit screen time that he has.

While the music and dance sequences are just about OK and nothing that one tends to remember and be in awe of. The cinematography is good and the beautiful Sydney locales are well captured on camera. What one is left remembering is the Sydney Opera House because of the recurring shots around it. The film is well edited and the dialogues are simple without any unnecessary drama.

On the whole, this movie has good chances at the box office because of the high octane publicity and also the star cast. Moreover, a comedy is always welcome.