Review - Heyy Babyy: Chewing gum for the brain

I marvel at how little time a story writer can spend on his characters. A 1-in-3 character will do (1 personality in 3 characters, duh!?) when there are shaking hips and comedy to take its place. Absolutely run-of-the-mill slapstick is in-charge of the first half of the movie. Interestingly though, the second half is taken over mostly by my kind of good subtle humor. And that's what made this one worth it for me.

Who needs narratives when we have Akshay Kumar's 3-minute description of 3 characters, right? As Akshay's voiceover started annoying me, I let my mind wander around...

(Sort-of random thought – Maybe slapstick was meant to be silent, you know - Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy or even Mr. Bean - one element less to irritate me.)

...people around me are whistling and hooting at every single barely-clad woman who comes on screen...

(Random thought - I am touched! Not only the writer/director, but the audience too has immense respect for women.)

...back to slapstick. Someone is reading my sort-of random thought. Words are replaced by a typical comedy feature - a fast forward action set to loud and pacy background music. No-no - I am not saying I wanted to see it at a slower pace (Gawd, NO!). Why does our new breed of directors need to resort to this cumbersome technique? Has all that needs to be explored in editing techniques been explored? I am sure there was a day and age when this was absolutely hilarious, but don't we need a little more than this to make us laugh? Maybe not. The full house (at an 8.45 AM show) was laughing its heart out. And they laughed again - the second time this technique was used in the span of 15 minutes...

(More random thought – Whose fault is it that I am doing all this random thinking? Since I refuse to blame it on a human being, I blame it on the inimitable art of repetition.)

...Oh wow! Barely-clad women gone!! Does Sajid Khan have a random-thought-reading contraption? Well, I know I do - exactly what I expect is happening on screen. And the few times the story is not predictable, they have left out explanations altogether. Anyway, cut to song...

(Not-so random thought – There should be a better way of expressing, "this child has changed my life" than -
'tune jeena sikhlaaya,
tune mujhe insaan banaaya'
(you've taught me how to live,
you've made me into a human being)

How about these two lines that a lay-person generated in 5 minutes...
'Nazar badli meri ya ye nazaare?
Tere nazaare se badli hai dil ki niyatein'
(Has the view changed or my vision?
With you in view this heart has changed its intention))

...Huh? Did they just start another movie by mistake? Where's the mandatory shouting gone? Suddenly, I have interesting and non-repetitive dialogues. Wow! Actual tongue-in-cheek humor, tangy one-liners!! Though the super-melodrama is here to stay, I am ecstatic that the movie is getting better and am laughing out really loud...

(Not-at-all random thought - The more randomly I think, the better the movie gets. Maybe, it's my wandering mind that is making the movie improve. Or maybe I shouldn't start taking credit just yet)

...oh, this is an interesting style of narration. Huge chunks of the story are narrated just by way of dialogue and finished off in five minutes. And huge chunks of time are taken to narrate the slow-moving parts of the story. Even-paced movies generally are better at retaining my attention, but interesting style nevertheless...

(Back to random thought - Am I getting more responsive as Baby Johaina is getting more responsive? She is doing a good job of acting. Oh wait, no-one can make an 8-month old act. She is a natural!)

...oops, what's wrong with Vidya Balan? Why is she so stiff, no body language? Where did she learn this non-acting? Hopefully, not from Fardeen Khan. On the other hand, Ritiesh Deshmukh is the regular amount of tolerable, and Akshay Kumar's comic timing is awesome in some of the scenes. But the star is Babyy Johaina - her expressions are the best...

(Real random thought - When the universe was made how many more senses were generated. What were they? How were the current five (six?) chosen and why were the others discarded?)

...yep, that's how uninteresting the climax is...This one would have been an absolute dud for me but for the comedy post-interval.