Hum Tum Shabana is bheja fry. No, Sagar Ballary doesn’t pay tribute to his first film — a satirical comedy that touched a chord and gave us the irrepressible Bharat Bhushan. He just takes the title a tad too seriously.

Riding on the bank-breaking collections of the Golmaal films, farce seems to be the new formula in Bollywood. But, loud and crass, Hum Tum Shabana is asinine to the point of repulsion. If you were one of those unfortunate few to have trudged to the cinemas to catch a show of Hum Tum Shabana this Friday, your festive weekend must have got off to anything but the ideal start.

There isn’t anything in Hum Tum Shabana that doesn’t grate on your nerves. The performances range from listless to loud, the comedy is lowbrow, the production values border on the tacky and Ballary not only loses the plot often, he forgets to have one in the first place!

Hum Tum Shabana is also a case study in classic miscasting. If Tusshar Kapoor plays a high-flying corporate honcho in suit and tie, Minissha Lamba — who barely manages to reach 5ft — is a model with beauty pageant aspirations. What brings them together? Tusshar’s Rishi is employed with the event management firm in charge of the pageant that Minissha’s Shabana is participating in. Rishi takes an instant fancy to Shabana — pulling out all the stops to woo her. The only hitch? His colleague Kartik (Shreyas Talpade) also has his sights on the girl. The first half has the two indulging in silly games of one-upmanship. The second half — with a gang of underworld dons, a funeral, a series of kidnappings and a diamond heist culminating in a ridiculous climax — plunges Hum Tum Shabana to bizarre levels of absurdity.

Unlike the Golmaal films which promise some laughs even in the middle of the moronic madness, Hum Tum Shabana’s comedy is of the lowest denominator. Satish Kaushik’s Panju Don slaps himself when he is angry and rains blows on the person he is pleased with. Shreyas often breaks into a naagin dance. Tusshar Kapoor dresses like Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow from The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise for a song. An unintentionally comic moment? Fashion filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar — in a cameo — walking down the ramp as many as three times in a sequence.

The performances are uniformly bad. Shreyas is insufferable while Tusshar does a shade better. Despite having the title role, Minissha (looking heavily botoxed) is virtually absent in Half Two. Supermodel Pia Trivedi — making her Bolly debut — mouths a couple of bitchy lines in the first half and turns in a raunchy dance performance in the don’s den when she is kidnapped post-interval. She turns out to be the best thing about the film.

Enough said. Give us a stuffed and sweaty Puja pandal any day.

Priyanka Roy

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