Riteish Deshmukh is one of those permanent fixtures in a certain type of Bollywood ‘comedy’. Born without much in the way of stellar good looks, he has made the best of his comic ability and perhaps capitalized on his other assets such as his lineage fairly well. He also married the lovely Genilia D’Souza and expanded his happy union to the formulaic hum-do-hamare-do. All well and good. But he recently said that he was not embarrassed by any of his work. I humbly put it to you that he should be. Very!
Humshakals
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Arguably one of the worst films ever made. Even those starring in the film either dissociated themselves or publicly criticised it. This one had three men in triple roles. Deshmukh was one of them and should have been very, very embarrassed by the scale of implausibility, tackiness and crassness that was this film.
Mastizaade
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In this alleged ‘adult comedy’ he rejoices in the name Orgasm Baba. His is a cameo appearance, but should he be embarrassed by the non-funny, sexist, suggestive nonsense that the film was? Hell yeah! He should really worry that he is considered to be some sort of mascot for this type of film.
Appearing in drag
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OK this one thing he really should not be embarrassed of – he makes a nice looking girl. The other two; I wouldn’t want to meet them in an alley somewhere; they’d probably scare me witless (yes, I’m not very brave). Oh yes! Extra points for great legs Riteish!
Sajid Khan
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Full marks for loyalty to a friend but zero for choosing to participate in the rubbishy films that that friend makes. Here’s a sample: Heyy Babyy, Himmatwala and the most unfortunate Humshakals. Res ipsa loquitor (the thing speaks for itself) and it doesn’t tell a story of very good choices.
That expression…
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…And many others. I understand that these roles demand a severe case of over-the-topness, but really it is not pretty. Must he ham it up quite as much as that? Isn’t he worried his wife will withhold privileges or something?
The Masti films
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All the men and all the women involved in this film series should be embarrassed about everything related to these utterly awful films. The sophomoric humour, the contrived stories (if you can even loosely call them that), the silly characterizations, unbelievable situations… not only are they an insult to the intelligence they are sexist, puerile, prurient and utterly off colour.
There is much that Riteish Deshmukh can and should be proud of. He is a fine actor and with an unconventional face has achieved success in an industry where audiences worship the conventional. But how about that promise made earlier? The one about not making sex comedies after the birth of his son? Especially now that he has two!
Author – Reena Daruwalla
