Review: 'Hum Tum Shabana' is a terrible, terrible film

Film: Hum Tum Shabana
Director: Sagar Ballary
Cast: Tusshar Kapoor, Shreyas Talpade, Minissha Lamba
Rating: (–)*

There’s no better way to say this: Hum Tum Shabana is the worst film you’ll have watched this year. This list includes Game and Teen Thay Bhai, although it’s unlikely you’ll have watched either. This one’s in the Tees Maar Khan-No Problem league. Only worse. Yes, it’s possible. HTS goes one up on most bad films you’ll have watched lately.
 
Sagar Ballary’s debut film, Bheja Fry – a rip-off of the hit French comedy, Le Dîner de Cons (The Dinner Game) – was a mediocre film that managed to recover its modest cost and make some money for it to be declared an indie hit. He then made the lackluster Kaccha Limboo, and then the unbearable Bheja Fry 2.

Hum Tum Shabana is the nadir. That’s good news for Ballary. He possibly can’t make a worse film.
 
HTS is not as much a bad film as it’s unbearable. The sound mixing gives you a headache, and seems to have been pumped up only to drown the already loud voices of Tusshar, Shreyas, Satish Kaushik and Sanjay Mishra, all of who shriek through most of the film.
 
Minissha Lamba, the Shabana in the plot, has surprisingly little to do, and is almost absent in the second half. In stead, model Pia Trivedi springs out of no where, scantily clad in a warehouse item number that you don’t care much about. Your brain cells are dead and gone for anything to register by then.
 
The two male actors try to outdo the other in the film, although in real they are just competing for the ‘Ham of the Year’ award. Talpade attempts to salvage things with some good comic timing, but in vain. Tusshar gets lines that go something like this: “In spite of immense talent, people like me get left behind.” That’s the only half-funny dialogue in the film.
 
Watching Hum Tum Shabana is akin to putting yourself through torture. Recommended for those who hate themselves.