‘Andaz Apna Apna’: The Best Bollywood (Midnight?) Movie the West Has Never Heard About
On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema in the streaming age.
First, the spoiler-free pitch for one editor’s midnight movie pick — something weird and wonderful from any age of film that deserves our memorializing.
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Then, the spoiler-filled aftermath as experienced by the unwitting editor attacked by this week’s recommendation.
The Pitch: A Star-Studded Cult Comedy That Doesn’t Fit in Any Bollywood Box
The year was 2000. The place: A local South Asian grocery store in suburban Michigan. The occasion: Friday night, baby, the night for browsing the store’s DVD library for a rental, and my father’s pick for the week — “Andaz Apna Apna.”
I don’t think Rajkumar Santoshi’s seminal comedy was made with a nine-year-old American girl in mind, but I ate the film up. It’s not overtly childish or adult, but boasts the kind of evergreen yet brilliant humor that most comedies only dream of. When they do achieve it, they’re lucky to nail even one joke genre, from slapstick to verbal — but “Andaz Apna Apna” has it all.
The film starts out by introducing Amar (Aamir Khan) and Prem (Salman Khan, no relation), two lazy boys with big dreams and schemes for getting rich and famous. Amar believes you have to spend money to make money — crucially focusing on the spending, and skipping the part where you also work hard; Prem spends his days getting headshots taken at a sham casting agency in exchange for false promises of stardom.
Their prayers are answered by the arrival of the English heiress Raveena Bajaj (Raveena Tandon), who arrives in India to find a husband because “Yahaan ke log dimaag se nehi, dil se sochta hai” — “People here think not with their brains, but with their hearts.” The two boys meet on the road to Raveena, alternating between fast friendship and vicious enmity as they concoct plans to compete for her affection.
Forgive me for a third paragraph of plot summary, but you need to know one more thing: Raveena’s father Ram has an evil twin, Teja (both played by a superb Paresh Rawal), who has sent his inept criminal goons to kill Raveena so he might steal the Bajaj fortune. A caped crime boss (Shakti Kapoor) is on Teja’s heels for an unpaid debt, putting even more lives at risk.
“Andaz Apna Apna” is two hours and 40 minutes (it’s a Hindi movie, suck it up) of constant bits and barely any breath — in the best way. Some parts are randomly sped up to quirky music; some are self-referential jokes about Bollywood itself and other movies, and some are clearly just a read that the actor or director must have liked and included. Side characters Robert (Viju Khote), Bhalla (Shehzad Khan), Anand (Javed Khan Amrohi), Sevaram (Harish Patel), and many more provide a parade of scene stealing performances, and the songs — a mere four — marry classic Bollywood charm from the time with the movie’s eclectic visuals and story.
That first time my parents rented “Andaz Apna Apna,” the DVD got stuck. It kept freezing at the top of song 3, “Yeh Raat Aur Yeh Doori,” when Prem attempts to woo Raveena and doesn’t realize that her secretary Karisma (Karisma Kapoor) is the one answering his loving lullaby. We took out the disc, cleaned it, restarted the player, even tried skipping the song, but it was over. I went to school on Monday bursting to tell my friends about this amazing movie, and giddy to finish it later in the week while my dad drove to a different suburb for another copy. To this day I feel a spike in anxiety during that part of the movie, followed by the purest joy and relief when it keeps going into the outrageous third act and climax.
With more people discovering Indian cinema every day, “Andaz Apna Apna” deserves its exploding flowers. Even if part of me wants to hold it close and quiet, it’s already beloved by millions of fans. But another part of me is developing a muscle cramp from modulating my facial response to people who say “I love Indian movies! I’ve seen ‘triple R!'” or think all Hindi cinema is love stories and period dramas — or even independent masterpieces and festival darlings. I could not be clearer: “Andaz Apna Apna” does not belong at Cannes, or even on certain Best Of lists and Bollywood primers depending on the metrics. But it is a perfect midnight movie, and my favorite ever. Looking back at my formative age and the sheer joke volume, it’s easy to see why I gravitated to the kinds of TV comedies I now love, or to films like “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.”
I’m going to cut myself off because I could and will talk about this movie for the rest of my life, and turn it over to IndieWire’s Alison Foreman. For the record, the last time I recommended a Hindi movie to her, I low-key changed her life. —PK
The Aftermath: There’s Always a Midnight Musical Showing in Bollywood
When first-time IndieWire After Dark challenger Proma Khosla introduced me to “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai” early last year, she indirectly helped it make internet history.
Curation can be a fickle business and Best Of lists change all the time, but as of publishing this article today, the 1998 love triangle from writer/director Karan Johar is still ranked No. 1 on IndieWire’s list of The Best Romantic Comedies Ever Made. I’ve since stepped away from editing that section (h/t its current king Wilson Chapman, long may he reign), but I stand by the decision as the most objectively right cinematic upset I’ve ever helped champion.
“Just want you to know we’re on the ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’ WIKIPEDIA PAGE,” Proma messaged me on Slack soon after that article posted. “Pinnacle of my career.”
I’ve been lucky enough to call Proma a friend for more than five years and she’s been a colleague to me for all but a few months of that. Throughout our shared stints at Mashable and then IndieWire, I’ve always known Proma to have immaculate taste in vibes. She’s got a consistent appreciation for over-the-top theatrics and technically excellent artistry with a particular knack for recognizing great performances and scores. She doesn’t mind camp, but I’ve also never known her to let a storyteller off the hook for taking the easy way out. Nowhere is that more apparent than in her writing about Bollywood.
If you’ve read Proma’s work, then you know she’s demanded better of the West’s representations of Indian cinema for years. From critiquing the lackluster choreography in Disney’s live action “Aladdin” to flagging how the Oscars failed Best Original Song winner “RRR” at the ceremony last year, Proma can explain Indian pop culture to non-Indian people better than anyone I know. That Kumail Nanjiani performed his highly hyped Bollywood number for “The Eternals” in English might not be the biggest problem with that particularly bad Marvel movie, but it’s the one specific criticism I’m still talking about today.
Enter “Andaz Apna Apna,” a delightful epic of zany disguises, at-risk fortunes, and clumsy young love that will no doubt hold a spot in my midnight musical rotation for years to come. Bollywood remains an underexplored category for me, but each time I embark on one of these more-is-more masterpieces that Proma knows so much about I’m left smiling in a way few other films can provoke. It’s a testament to the caliber of the recommendations and the genre that I’ve quickly embraced Bollywood’s supersized running times as treats, luxurious reflections of the confidence filmmakers like Santoshi have in their intoxicating light-fare fantasies.
Just a touch earlier than my beloved “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai,” this gem from 1994 comingles jokes about liquid shits with touching exchanges of sincere affection in a way I’ve not seen attempted outside of “Along Came Polly.” That’s among my all-time favorite American rom-coms (No. 68 on the aforementioned list right now), but even after just one viewing, I can already tell that I might like “Andaz Apna Apna” more. There is a puritanical fear of fun baked into a lot of American culture, and the sense that films which prioritize laughs, music, and/or spectacle need to be rushed has always made me sad. Even when adapting the most legendary Broadway shows for the big screen, filmmakers routinely cut numbers and rush the editing tempo to make up for what’s too often seen as lost time.
Winding through a string of fantastically silly ideas, like two lovers singing about their strained connection in the countryside, this Bollywood cult classic ticks all the boxes of a great midnight movie. Not only does it joyfully prance across genres — mixing elements of the great Bollywood romance with a crime caper-turned-comedy of errors that almost made me spit out my drink — but it also blissfully burns through a half-dozen offbeat narrative ideas at a pace that kept me on my toes no matter what.
Twists on twists make watching the central foursome of Karishma, Raveena, Prem, and Amar, perpetually mid-identity swap (“Who are you calling, Tilu?!”), feel akin to spectating a game of flirty musical chairs in the most gratifying way. Better still are the outrageous editing choices that complement those antics, with precise but knowingly goofy jump-cuts and sound effects providing an endless sky of cinematic experience to gaze into. For me, it’s the details that make Bollywood feel so big and “Andaz Apna Apna” glitters with too many referential moments to count — intentional and not. Santoshi can’t have meant for those stings in the last-act action sequence with Crime Master Gogo to sound exactly like Buffalo Bill’s night-vision camera in “Silence of the Lambs,” but I dare you to do a comparison and tell me I’m wrong.
Intoxicating and intimidating as always, Proma’s Bollywood expertise continues to make my love of all movies stronger. Texting about “Andaz Apna Apna” (my pal Proma, I’m sad to tell you, lives almost 2,500 miles away from me in New York), my only complaint was that we could not sit down to enjoy it together. Midnight movies are best enjoyed as communal experiences, and witnessing the bubbly quotability of a movie made in a language I don’t speak would not have been the same without Proma as my guide. I don’t know when or where but I will be using “If it’s tails I win, if it’s heads you lose…” on her someday.
There’s plenty about “Andaz Apna Apna” I know now that I could not have learned screening it on my own. So, in no particular order, here are just a few facts Proma told me while I watched:
Depending on which translation you’re watching, you might see a quote that’s not right. If you see Robert say, “I made a mistake by oversight,” or “I made a mistake by fault,” then know the original line was much better and translates to “I made a mistake by mistake.”
Aamir Khan and Salman Khan are both cast against the type they’ve since settled into. Aamir is known as a very serious dramatic actor and Salman is more of “a commercial popcorn macho guy,” but as Proma pointed out, “Neither is that in this movie.”
When Prem is asked if he has seen the 1975 movie “Sholay,” he responds saying his dad wrote it. Salman’s father, Salim Khan, was indeed a co-writer on that film.
Shehzad Khan’s father gained acclaim during his career for playing iconic villains, and Bhalla is a spot-on Ajit Khan reference for those familiar with his work.
You might recognize Harish Patel, who played the lovable Karun Patel in “The Eternals” and plays Sevaram the motel owner here.
The character Mogambo, the main antagonist in Shekhar Kapur’s “Mr. India” from 1987, is a major villain known across Bollywood movies, hence the joke of Crime Master Gogo being his nephew.
In 2022, Proma dressed as Gogo for her own Bollywood Halloween (AKA “Bollyween”) wearing a $9 red cape and some combat boots she had on hand. It was, she says, “the best costume of my life.” —AF
You can rent “Andaz Apna Apna” on Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, and Google Play (it’s also inexplicably free on YouTube at press time, definitely not legally, but hey — it’s IndieWire After Dark). IndieWire After Dark publishes midnight movie recommendations at 11:59pm ET every Friday. Read more of our deranged suggestions…
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