One Two Three (released in 2008) - A comedy movie starring Tushar Kapoor, Paresh Rawal, Suniel Shetty, Esha Deol, Sameera Reddy, and others

When you make such a movie, you are doing an experiment hoping that enough people will like the jokes and make the movie earn more than the cost. So, one way of helping this process along is by having a host of characters in the movie (and with none of them being the mega stars who charge a whole host of money and decrease the chance of your movie becoming a hit); then you add in some jokes of all varieties (including jokes that are more adult - and this seems to work, with the very adult jokes full movie, Grand Masti, becoming a big hit this year, 2013). There are a number of movies that have come in with the concept of people getting mistaken for each other, and the resulting comedy capers. Add in the concept of all of them being in a confined space such as a hotel, and things get even more chaotic (for an example of how action inside a hotel can be converted into a massive comic scene - just watch the movie, De Dana Dan which had most of the sequence inside a hotel with chases and what-not inside the hotel itself).
One Two Three takes 3 different people - played by Tusshar Kapoor, Paresh Rawal and Suniel Shetty all in a hotel, all coming from very different backgrounds and with different personalities. So what brings them all together ? All of them have come to the same city, staying in the same hotel, and with the same name, Laxminarayan. And you can guess the rest of the confusion that erupts when they are all in the same hotel, especially when you have Dons also involved, and when one of them sells undergarments, you can understand where the adult humor comes in. Some of the other cast include Esha Deol, Sameera Reddy, Upen Patel, Neetu Chandra and Tanisha. A whole host of characters, but none of them are of the mega-star kind who would charge an arm and a leg, and who would throw a tantrum if you did not revolve the movie around them.




Tusshar is the poor guy from Mumbai, living with his widowed mother, with the ambition being to become more of a successful gangster, kill some people, make a name and then marry the daughter of another don. So, he comes to Pondicherry to kill another Don, on whom he has got a contract.
Suniel Shetty is a secretary, come to the city to buy a vintage car from a dealer (and who would not want to buy a car from a dealer such as Sameera Reddy).
Paresh Rawal is a dealer in undergarments, who has come to Pondicherry to meet up with a new supplier (Esha Deol). Both of these ladies have their own struggles, with both of them being under debt and desperate to strike the deals for which Suniel and Paresh have come to the city. And then Upen Patel and Tanisha are there in the auto showroom, but actually are doing diamonds, hiding in the car which Sameera is trying to sell. And of course, the police is also hunting for these diamonds. A sleeper movie (since not too many people remember the movie), but it made money and even though it is easy to dismiss as another of those crank comic capers, it did reasonably well.

Golmaal Returns - the extra suspicious wife and a murder (released in 2008)

When you get a successful film, there is a pressure to create a franchise, create more movies with the same set of actors and the director in the hope that viewers will also like this movie and make it successful. This has actually worked in many cases, with sequels of movies in Hollywood (Terminator, Pirates of the Carribean, Superman, Spiderman, etc) doing excellent business and providing riches to their creators. Of course there have been cases when the same success has not come to the next movie, but then there is no harm in trying. In the case of Bollywood, the concept of leveraging on the success of a previous movie is a pretty late one, only in the past decade that it has been seen. Golmaal indeed could be one of the first ones to make this a success, even though the sequels have no connection with the previous one in terms of story, but do have the same crew (director, and many actors and actresses being the same). Golmaal Returns was one such movie, which was released in 2008, in order to leverage the success of the earlier Golmaal (which was released in 2006).
Between the 2 movies, the director was the same (Rohit Shetty), and the main crew members were the same (Ajay Devgun, Tusshar Kapoor and Arshad Warsi). Sharman Joshi was no longer there in the sequel, and the heroine was also changed, with Kareena Kapoor brought in to enhance the star power, and some additional actors and actresses also brought in. The movie was a hit, even though critics were not particularly impressed by the movie - the humour in the original Golmaal seemed pretty genuine, while the humor in this one seemed a bit forced, written in to try and put more humour in the script, and leaving a slight jarring edge. But no matter, audiences loved it, and it was a hit. The songs were also liked, with the music being composed by Pritam, and one song 'Thar kar Le' being composed by Ashish Pandit (and the lyrics for the movie were by Sameer).
Now onto the story. I was not particularly fascinated by the story, since the attempt seemed to be to bring as many characters into the storyline and use some incredible coincidences to push the story forward. So, here goes (and if you have not seen the movie and want to keep your suspense, do not read ahead of this point).
Gopal (Devgun) and Ekta (Kareena Kapoor) are a couple with 2 siblings - Esha (Amrita Arora) is the sister of Gopal, and Lucky (Tusshar Kapoor, playing a mute) is the brother of Ekta. Ekta is an avid watcher of hindi serials (particularly the Balaji type serials) and is very suspicious of Gopal. Gopal keeps on warning her from time to time to not be so suspicious, since it would create problems for them.

Gopal works in a fishing company and has some periodic clashes with people in his company (not very serious though), especially when he believes that his colleague is instigating his wife against him. And then something happens which would cause the suspicion of Ekta to become reality. He is coming home from work, when he sees a girl being assaulted by some hoodlums and saves Meera (Celina Jaitley) from those goons. Unfortunately, due to some circumstances, they are forced to spend the night together on a yacht (although nothing happens between them).
Now, when Gopal reaches home the next morning, there is going to be trouble. Ekta, ever suspicious, wants to know where he was; Gopal obviously cannot tell her the truth, so he lies that he was with a friend of his. When Ekta pushes him for the name of the friend, Gopal comes up with a name 'Anthony Gonsalves', with a fictitious address. However, Ekta is very suspicious and sends of a letter to Anthony, and in the coincidence of a lifetime, there is actually a person called Anthony Gonsalves and an actual address and the letter is received.
One of Gopal's juniors, Laxam Prasad (Shreyas Talpade), who claims to be a great problem solver, then decides to take the place of Anthony to ensure that Ekta is not suspicious. Another coincidence, Laxman is also the boyfriend of Meera, and Meera has not told him about this incident. And then the big problem, where a dead man is found where Gopal had fought the goons, and this is the same person Gopal's office with whom he had a tiff. This brings inspector Madhav (played by Arshad Warsi) on the scene; Madhav is in love with Gopal's sister but has a running feud with Gopal and is incredibly happy that there is a chance for him to put Gopal in a difficult position.
Eventually, Madhav learns that Laxman is not Anthony, and when they tell him about Meera (and in the meantime, Ekta leaves Gopal when she learns that he told her a lie), he tells Gopal that he better bring Meera quickly to the station if he wants to save himself. Gopal and Laxam hire Munni to play the role of Meera, which she is willing to do for the money. However, her boyfriend, Vasuli, currently behind bars, is not happy at this. And then Munni is kidnapped by the murderer.

And then starts a whole trail of events to try and find Munni, in the meantime Vasuli kidnaps Meera since he wants his Munni back, and then finally Gopal learns that his boss was behind the murder since he was smuggling drugs under the guise of the fishing business, and his colleague was killed because he found out. After some more drama, there is a happy ending.

Golmaal returns (DVD on Amazon)	Music for Golmaal returns - Amazon	Golmaal Returns - Movie on Flipkart

Songs from the movie Golmaal Returns: Tha Kar Ke (link) Vacancy (link) Tu Saala (link) Meow (link)