Movie Review: Hum Do Hamare Do

Hum Do Hamare Do Movie Review Rating: 3 of 5

Star Cast: Paresh Rawal, Ratna Pathak Shah, Rajkummar Rao, Kriti Sanon, Aparshakti Khurana, Manu Rishi Chadha, Prachi Shah Pandya.

Director: Abhishek Jain

As the title suggests it is about a family. Not brought together by blood but situation. When the love of his life (Anya, Kriti) tells Dhruv (Rajkummar) that she wants to marry a guy who has a family and adopts a pet, he takes the adoption part too seriously. An orphan by birth, he adopts parents and the comedy of errors begins.

What is actually interesting is the period between the demand and twist. And this is where Ratna Pathak Shah and Paresh Rawal enter the story and the whole movie is elevated just by their acting performances, more about that later. Who also takes a whole new avatar in writing is Prashant Jha, who is also credited for the dialogues. It is after Paresh enters his dialogues that turn more appealing. A lot of it is situational and some parts seem to be improvised too.

Story by Abhishek Jain & Deepak Venkateshan, Hum Do Hamare Do is a comedy of errors that is inspired by multiple Bollywood movies we have seen over years. Not just the characters obsessed by the idea Sooraj Barjatya has spent his life living, but the format of how it unfolds too is all we have seen. Boy and girl meet in a chance encounter, boy falls in love at first sight and decides he will only marry her or Sanyas! She demands, it is fulfilled, twist and climax. Screenplay by Prashant Jha.

What lacks in Hum Do Hamare Do strongly is the base. It seems like the writers and the team were running towards the interesting part without really polishing the world around it which in the first case was meant to trigger the interesting portion. Rajkummar turns a rich guy from a little waiter in minutes, his rags to riches journey are spoken about multiple times. But never giving it the respect that aspect of his character deserves. Rather we are told to focus on ‘see how amazing a lover he is’. Your heroine fell in love with his tech expertise, why reduce him to a local lover.

Paresh Rawal and Ratna Pathak Shah are the real heroes in this movie. The actors make you feel how much more substantial work they deserve than the industry is offering them. As a fake father, Rawal leaves no stone unturned to become one. His one-liners and the timing are so balanced that it all looks improvised and not choreographed. In a blink-and-miss scene when Kriti comes to his home, he tells her ‘beta jhuk ke ana’, while it could have been easily offensive by some other actor, Rawal makes it sarcastically funny.

Aparshakti Khurana has tried all shades of a best friend and now he even has a turban. Helmet was so good Apar, high time there is a paradigm shift in choices. Manu Rishi Chadha and Prachi Desai are good at their limited parts.

Rajkummar Rao can cakewalk these characters. We have seen him do this multiple times. Even his The White Tiger character was a rip-off of Dhruv, just the accent was an addition. He needs to bring back the Newton/Stree version of him soon. Kriti Sanon does a golden job of becoming the stereotypical Bollywood heroine. She introduces herself as a blogger in the first 10 minutes, never to be spoken about it again. She could have called herself an astronaut and nothing could have changed because Anya is written that one tone. I loved Kriti in Panipat and Mimi, she deserves much better.