Mai Tera Hero : David ki Masala Khichdi
David Dhawan has a set template for his movies. He has a formula and he is No. 1 in his formula (pun intended). He started with Masala action films, did emotional family films, however he found his foothold in Comedy with Govinda. I prefer his Aankhen and Shola air Shabnam any day than the movies he did later.
As I say, today’s mediocre work becomes tomorrow’s legendary work if it is alive for a long period of time. David is now projected as new reality show anchors or nostalgic 90 kids as some kind of legendary movie maker. However, I would associate him with all the wrong things in 90s movies. Bright colours, weird costumes, whacky characters, below the belt double meaning dialogs and only for eye candy heroines who accept same kind of roughness from the hero which they reject from the villain. If we cringe over today’s Rowdy Rathor style heroes mouthing derogatory dialogs and road side romeo style behaviour, the roots of it is in David’s movies.
I do not deny the fact that most of David’s successful movies are a laughathon but still they account for all the impurities in Bollywood mentioned above. Before we forget, add to it the randomly appearance of totally unrelated songs with ugly pelvic thrust choreography and classless lyrics. Recently on Koffee with Karan, Anil Kapoor mentioned “Khada hai Khada hai Khada hai” song from David’s film Andaz as the most ridiculous one he had to perform on. But all was served in the name of “logo ki pasand”. If we give credit of hearty laughs to David, we must credit for all such atrocities to the art of cinema to him only.
Having said all of this, now let’s discuss “Mai Tera Hero”. Templated in David’s comic formula, “Mai Tera Hero” is same story of a trouble maker small town boy (this time it is Ooty) who is happily sent off to a Big metro (Bangalore) for further studies. Here, the hero, Seenu, is replaced by Varun Dhawan instead of Govinda and Heroine, Sunaina, is replaced by Eleana D’Cruz instead of a Karishma/Ravina/Juhi. Seenu faces big trouble in the form of Inspector Angad (Arunoday Singh) who in love with Sunaina and does not allow anyone else near her. However, “Harami” Seenu, as he calls himself, gets rid of this obstacle and wins the heart of Sunaina. But a big twist comes in the form of Ayesha (Nargis Fakhri) which again puts their love story in trouble. How Varun gets out of all these troubles and wins back her lover, is the story you may like to watch on the big screen.
The story is same old same old with highly clever and chalu hero outwitting everyone to win his love of life. There’s nothing new in the story and screenplay by Tushar Hiranandani but he is able to bring few laughs in the first half and many more in second half due to quirky characters (including different Gods) and witty dialogs by Milap Zaveri. Surprisingly, the dialogs are cleaner this time.
David Dhawan’s director is as usual but is again marred by script with a dull first half. In second half he gets to showcase comic talent but still has some flat moments. Even though the film is a remake of Telugu film “Kandireega”,cannot there’s unmistakable stamp of David Dhawan on it. Overall, he did his job well.
This film is a showcase movie for Varun Dhawan. He shows his 6 pack abs, dances, romances and does comic and fight scenes. He has incredible confidence and does fair work. However, he has big shoes of Govinda to fill in and there he fails. Apart from just acting the part, he cannot bring something else to the table which can make him irreplaceable. Both the girls Eleana and Nargis has nothing much to do than using a set of expressions as per the order of the Director. They don’t seem to mind it and enjoy their work. Do we enjoy it can be a question.
Again this film is saved somewhat due to its character actors like Rajpal Yadav and Saurabh Shukla. They are able to bring out some genuine laughter. Anupam Kher goes back to his 90s style acting and is able to bring out few laughs for his quirky ECHO. Arunoday Singh as Angad is good enough and looks the part he plays. Shakti Kapoor who was integral part of David’s movies also gets to do a surprise chameo and is fine in it.
Sajid-Wajid does good job with few foot tapping numbers. Choreography by Ganesh and Bosco-Caesar is good. Background Sound by Sandeep Shirokar is good. I had a big problem with the Sound Designing/recording. It was high pitch and hurting ears. Production Design by Sukant Panigrahy is average. Cinematography by Sanjay F. Gupta is just ok. Action by Mahendra Verma is good.
Overall, a weak first half, good second half makes it an average movie. Common consensus after watching this movie will be “We miss you Govinda”
Rating : 
Recommendation : If you like any movie by David Dhawan, Do watch this. Anyone else who is ok to spend 2 hrs for few laughs will also be fine with it. Everyone else expecting perfect products shall skip it. Information for Family Audience, movie is relatively clean but has 3 elaborate kissing scenes. So it’s unto you if you want to watch with kids or not.
