IMDb #159 Review: Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. (2003)

Source: Wikipedia

A big-city Mumbai gang boss struggles to convince his parents that he's a successful doctor, an upstanding member of the community. Even if he has to blackmail and kidnap and flagrantly lie to do it. When the farce inevitably falls through, he goes for the next best thing: become a real doctor. By blackmail and kidnapping and etc, etc, etc.

It's made plane from the slapstick-packed intro chase that none of this is to be taken seriously.

Our hero Munna might do bad things, but he's not a bad guy. He dotes on his doting parents; inspires fierce loyalty in his men, who'll break laws for his convenience before he even asks; and he harbors a charming vacuum where most people store their social awareness. Case in point: dropped out of high school, but decides to become a doctor, while drunk.

More heart than brains, he barges into med school the new-fashioned way: force a genius to do all the work.

But his old life follows him. He wriggles out of an arranged marriage by exposing himself as a delinquent. But, by virtue of indiscriminate friendliness, he meets and falls for the same girl (who he still hasn't met) who happens to be a nurse. Even though her father's the dean, who loathes him, who KNOWS what he is. It's that kind of movie.

Anyway, our hero's rough-edged cheerfulness sparks an underground success. He greets the veteran janitor by name and thanks him for thirty years of grumbling service with one of his mom's famous Magic Hugs. He plays carom and drinks OJ with a cool old guy. He sits up with a vegetable, gives the handsome lad a makeover, and wheels him around outdoors, jabbering about nothing and everything. He starts a spontaneous song-and-dance sequence to explain love to a suicidal patient. He cheers up a young guy dying of stomach cancer by bringing a stripper to the hospice ward.

Of course no good deed goes unpunished. But when the plot structure demands things turn for the worse -- resulting in some surprisingly emotional moments for an absurd musical comedy -- legions of loyalists flock to his aid.

I've said too much already. Yes, it's probably the funniest thing I've seen in years.

Realistic? No frigging way. But hella fun.

156 minutes.