God Only Knows (2004) begins with dramatic stock footage
of storm clouds, and a voice chanting about God lamenting over the state
of the entertainment industry. The chant continues:
The plot of God Only Knows is remarkably straightforward for Bollywood. Indra (Dilip Prabhavalkar), King of the Gods, is curious about 21st Century man, so he sends the trickster-sage Narad (Vihang Nayak) to collect an Indian government Minister (Anjaan Srivastav) and bring him to Heaven. The Minister is enthralled by Indra’s celestial throne and the power in represents that he forms an opposition party by recruiting disaffected gods, most notably Yumraaj (Viju Khote) the god of death and Menaka (Sharbani Mukherji), most beautiful of the apsaras. Wackiness ensues.
The plot isn’t all that important, though. It’s just there as a framework to tie the jokes together. The film is structured as a series of loosely related comic vignettes; it ’s more like, say, a Monty Python film than it is like a traditional Bollywood film.
Which brings me to the humor. It’s a comedy, after all, so is it funny? Well, the humor is pretty broad. (As an example, the opposition party is called the ” Combined Revolutionary Organization To Change Heaven.” The jokes just write themselves.) And while I have no evidence, I am convinced that some of the jokes are old jokes; I’d be willing to bet money that the Pakistani dentist joke has been around for years. In any case, the humor is sometimes very funny, sometimes very stupid, and often both. However, the humor is also very Indian, and so I missed a lot of the cultural cues. I could tell that they were poking fun at, say, Gujjurati stereotypes, but since I didn’t know what those stereotypes are, I couldn’t tell in the joke was funny or not. Since much of the film is a specific satire of Indian politics, I spent a fair amount of time scratching my head.
There’s not a lot of original music in the film; it’s a spoof, and so most of the songs have new lyrics set to familiar tunes, whether from classic Bollywood films or Western songs. Despite this, many of the dance numbers are very good indeed. If you’ve ever wanted to see beautiful women performing classical Indian dance to an ABBA song, this is the movie for you.
God Only Knows is actually mostly in English, with the characters only rarely switching to Hindi. Though some of the Indian accents are a bit think, I had no trouble following the dialogue. I recommend turning on the subtitles anyway, though, since they’re often hilariously bad.
And there’s not much more to say. This is a very silly movie, and it does not pretend otherwise. I was fairly indifferent on my first viewing, but after watching it gain to check facts for the review, it’s grown on me. God only knows why.
The ‘Bottoms Up’ gang then made this film,And if that’s not enough to establish the tone of the film, the first face we see is Johny Lever, playing a fraudulent street guru.
and the industry took a further drop.
God said, “Stop!
For God’s sake, stop!
You are making the world’s biggest flop!”
He said, “No one should see this film
unless they are totally brain dead.”
Maybe He meant you, you suckers,
since only you are in the theatre,
not knowing what’s lying ahead . . . .
Wait! Why leave now?
We have got your cash
so you might as well sit back
and ENJOY this trash!!!!
The plot of God Only Knows is remarkably straightforward for Bollywood. Indra (Dilip Prabhavalkar), King of the Gods, is curious about 21st Century man, so he sends the trickster-sage Narad (Vihang Nayak) to collect an Indian government Minister (Anjaan Srivastav) and bring him to Heaven. The Minister is enthralled by Indra’s celestial throne and the power in represents that he forms an opposition party by recruiting disaffected gods, most notably Yumraaj (Viju Khote) the god of death and Menaka (Sharbani Mukherji), most beautiful of the apsaras. Wackiness ensues.
The plot isn’t all that important, though. It’s just there as a framework to tie the jokes together. The film is structured as a series of loosely related comic vignettes; it ’s more like, say, a Monty Python film than it is like a traditional Bollywood film.
Which brings me to the humor. It’s a comedy, after all, so is it funny? Well, the humor is pretty broad. (As an example, the opposition party is called the ” Combined Revolutionary Organization To Change Heaven.” The jokes just write themselves.) And while I have no evidence, I am convinced that some of the jokes are old jokes; I’d be willing to bet money that the Pakistani dentist joke has been around for years. In any case, the humor is sometimes very funny, sometimes very stupid, and often both. However, the humor is also very Indian, and so I missed a lot of the cultural cues. I could tell that they were poking fun at, say, Gujjurati stereotypes, but since I didn’t know what those stereotypes are, I couldn’t tell in the joke was funny or not. Since much of the film is a specific satire of Indian politics, I spent a fair amount of time scratching my head.
There’s not a lot of original music in the film; it’s a spoof, and so most of the songs have new lyrics set to familiar tunes, whether from classic Bollywood films or Western songs. Despite this, many of the dance numbers are very good indeed. If you’ve ever wanted to see beautiful women performing classical Indian dance to an ABBA song, this is the movie for you.
God Only Knows is actually mostly in English, with the characters only rarely switching to Hindi. Though some of the Indian accents are a bit think, I had no trouble following the dialogue. I recommend turning on the subtitles anyway, though, since they’re often hilariously bad.
And there’s not much more to say. This is a very silly movie, and it does not pretend otherwise. I was fairly indifferent on my first viewing, but after watching it gain to check facts for the review, it’s grown on me. God only knows why.
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