Indian wedding

Nadiadwala Grandsons'
Heyy Babyy

Produced by: Sajid Nadiadwala
Directed by: Sajid Khan
Music: Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy
Starring: Akshay Kumar, Fardeen Khan, Riteish Deshmukh, Vidya Balan & Boman Irani

Passable Serio-comedy
Three confirmed studs sharing a bachelor apartment in Sydney and indulging freely in one-night (and multi-night) stands face a predicament - someone leaves a baby in a basket outside their door. There is a note that indicates that one of them is the father.

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Obviously there follows consternation, confusion and comedy as the three self-styled playboys (Akshay Kumar, Fardeen Khan and Riteish Deshmukh) have to manage the feeds, nappies and other aspects of the tot. Finally, their lust-life and sleep are wrecked and two of them lose their jobs. This leads them to angrily dump the baby outside a church, but when it begins to pour, they rush back to find the baby still there, dripping wet. Critical with pneumonia, she recovers miraculously and the men, who are smothered in guilt, get reformed and vow to raise her as fathers, even planning how she will dress decently so as not to get exploited by lusty men like them!

But a shock awaits the three. The mother Esha (Vidya Balan) soon shows up and takes the moppet away - she has been the one-night stand of Arush (Akshay Kumar) in India - though she too resides in Sydney! Unaware that her baby was living, because dad (Boman Irani) had lied to her that the infant had not survived - she reserves the right to motherhood.

The rest of the film is about how the three conspire with dad Boman, to reunite Arush and Esha and also thus win back the baby who has become such a huge part of their lives.The film does make subtle as well as in-your-face comments on free sex, promiscuity and one-night affairs - some of which are hilarious and others ho-hum. The loyal friendship between the three heroes and their all-consuming affection for the baby make for a lot of heart-warming sequences. The later attempts by Arush (who realizes that he has loved the different Esha all along only after a year!) are both fairly amusing and - within the context - reasonably credible.

But Sajid as director and his script (co-written by Sajid himself) often go completely overboard. The dialogues often lack spark and punch. The comedy is tepid, sometimes juvenile and the pace drags all along. Corny situations galore - like the trio asking pardon from all their conquests - crowd the film. The stretched-beyond-elastic-limits pre-climax (complete with a stretched DDLJ  tribute) and climax are very "filmy" and outdated for such a (for Hindi cinema) fresh storyline.

The music fails to synergies with the film and is only meant for beats and grooves, with the pop-qawwali sounding fake and the lullaby-like song emotionless.

As in the worst potboilers, details are glossed over and lower the film's calibre in every way - the child when left on the doorstep is clearly six months old, but we are told that the father took her away at birth! The doctor being the same in opposite ends of a huge city is a very hackneyed and dated coincidence. Obviously the film is in please-all mode, but Sajid cannot manage the feat a quarter as skilfully as sister Farah Khan in Main Hoon Na or for that matter even David Dhawan in Partner.

The performances are competent - we could not have expected anything less from the three heroes, but Akshay and Riteish (!) are becoming repetitious. Fardeen shines, especially in the Parimal Tripathi sequences as the chaste, Hindi-speaking Botany professor modelled on Dharmendra from Chupke Chupke. Vidya is okay but needs to pay attention to looks and fashion (?) sensibilities.

The film has managed a great opening, but it will certainly not be the most memorable contribution to 2007 or to Hindi cinema's memorable serio-comedies.

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