Apna Sapna Money Money

Rating:1.5/5

Producer: Raju Farooqui

Director: Sangeeth Sivan

Cast: Ritiesh Deshmukh, Shreyas Talpade, Anupam Kher, Celina Jaitly, Koena Mitra, Riya Sen, Jackie Shroff, Suniel Shetty

Yes, it’s a formula. Think Masti, Kya Kool Hai Hum, Tom, Dick and Harry and the like. The catchy title, cleavage and legs, fancily picturised songs (preferably with rap element), puerile jokes that make you cringe, and dudez who create trouble, and then try to solve it. All these films have been packaged well. But it’s always flat soda that they’re offering in a wine bottle. Result? Very disappointing.

Here’s the story, or lack of it. Kishan (Ritiesh Deshmukh) is a conman, who’s adept at disguise. His friend, sweet, simple, mechanic Arjun Fernandez (Shreyas Talpade) is in love with neighborhood sweetheart Shivani (Riya Sen). But Shivani’s father (Anupam Kher, funny at times) doesn’t want her to get married to a mechanic. He’s all set to welcome Shastriji, who is coming to fix up Shivani’s marriage with his son. Arjun gives Kishan a distress call, and before you know it, he disguises himself as Shastriji.

In the train, he meets Sania Badnam, that’s Celina Jaitly, lounging on the train berth in a super-revealing evening gown no less. Kishan, as he does throughout the film, tries to flirt (in a most objectionable, revolting manner, what are we, still living in the stone ages?). She works for a gangster Carlos (Jackie Shroff, strangely adorable) and is carrying `pachas kadode ke heere’ with her (Hindi’s films’ love affair with `keemti heere’ continues). But when she sees upright police office Namdev Mane (Suniel Shetty), she hides the diamonds in a pair of sandals in Shastriji’s bag. From then on, the sandals travel feet to feet, and confusion ensues.

Meanwhile Kishan turns from false Shastriji to femme fatale Sania (yup, she’s Sania too, fodder to add more confusion and gaffes), whom Shivani’s father flips for. He finally agrees to marry Shivani with Arjun if Sania promises to be his wife. So you get the premise, Carlos is running after Sania, who is being chased by Inspector Mane, who’s after Kishan, who flips for Julie (Koena Mitra). Meanwhile Arjun needs to conjure up money for a young child, undergoing an operation. There’s a separate track with Chunky Pandey as a North Eastern don called Ranaji and a tabela owner (Rajpal Yadav) who’s a wannabe don and dresses like Amitabh Bachchan in Sarkar.

How’s this for innovation – Arjun’s friends mainly comprise a sardar, Bobby Darling, and a harassed looking dog. Some of the scenes are particularly offensive, like Anupam Kher pressing the legs of Shivani’s prospective father in law. This kind of regressiveness would put even the saas bahu serials to shame. The dialogues are mostly distasteful. Here’s a gem — when Anupam Kher walks in and sees Shastriji (actually Kishan), kiss Julie, Arjun says, “Acha hua aap rape hone se pehle aa gaye.”

The comedy has the done-to-death-and-beyond man disguising as a woman, and countless jokes about oranges (you know where). There are also lame takeoffs on several films like Sarkar and Mangal Pandey, and they’re just not funny. The tone of the humour overall is disturbingly chauvinistic, and well, plain, boring. You’ve seen the same gags and the same jokes several times in comedies such as these.

Ritiesh in his first central role of sorts is earnest, but lacks enough screen presence, and is weakened by the contrived script. Shreyas is extremely likeable as Arjun. The rest of the cast is competent.