It's a twin movie with no actual twins.

Coolie No. 1 (1995) was  a big success for director David Dhawan, and now it's considered something of a cult classic in India, an excellent example of Dhawan's particular brand of comedy.  That can be a good thing, because he's made a number of successful films.  Of course, he also made Andaz, and I'm still mad about that one.

 Raju (Govinda) is a humble coolie, carrying luggage for disembarking passengers at the bus station.  Well, perhaps "humble" is the wrong word; Raju is proud to be "Coolie Number One," and wears an inscribed armband that he can point to while bragging.  He's a devoted follower of the Coolie's Code, determined to help carry the burdens of the people around him, and he is also (as is common for Bollywood heroes) unexpectedly good at beating people up.  He demonstrates both qualities when drug smuggler Mahesh (Mahesh Anand) hires him to carry two suitcases before being chased off by the police.  Raju tracks Mahesh down, delivers the suitcases as promised, and then beats him up and drags him to the police station.  Mahesh vows vengeance, but he's safely locked away, and it's not like he's the son of a wealthy businessman who will return to play a key role in the movie's climax or anything, right?

During another feat of bus station derring-do, Raju befriends priest and marriage broker Shadiram (Sadashiv Amrapurkar).  Shadiram brings a potential groom to meet Malti (Karisma Kapoor), the daughter of Hoshiyar Chand (Kader Khan), but when Hoshiyar Chand discovered that the family arrived by bus, he berates them for being too poor for his daughter, humiliating Shadiram in the process.  Shadiram vows revenge.

The plan is simple - disguise Raju as a rich prince visiting from Singapore, get him married to Malti, then reveal the truth to Hoshiyar Chand at a suitably dramatic time.  Raju is so smitten with Malti's photo that he agrees right away.  His mechanic friend Deepak (Harish Kumar) agrees to provide a "borrowed" car and pose as the driver, which is convenient because Hoshiyar Chand has two daughters, so Malti's sister Shalini (Kaanchan) can have a love interest too.

And the plan works really, really well.  Malti immediately falls for Raju as "Kunwar Mahendra Pratap Singh".  Literally - she falls out of a tree into his arms.  (Shalini falls for Deepak at the same time, but that's not a part of the plan, just a thing that happens.)  Hoshiyar Chand prides himself on being suspicious, but a quick visit to a rented mansion and a little reverse psychology are enough to make him agree to the match, and Raju and Malti are promptly married.  

And then Malti decides that she really wants to see this mansion everybody's talking about, and insists that Raju whisk her away to her glamorous new life in Mumbai.   He buys some time by pretending to be feuding with his "father," the businessman who owns the mansion (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) and storming away from the mansion and his alleged life of privilege, and the couple settle into a modest life in a rented home.  Also Shakti Kapoor is there and attempts comedy.

But it's a David Dhawan movie, so it needs more complication.  Hoshiyar Chand arrives in Mumbai to check on his daughter, and he arrives by bus, so he runs into Raju working as a coolie.  Raju quickly spins a story about his disgraced alcoholic philandering twin brother, and Hoshiyar Chand decides that that would be the perfect husband for Shalini.  Now Raju has to protect his original secret, maintain an imaginary twin brother, and avoid getting married to his sister-in-law.  Oh yes, and there is that angry drug dealer form the beginning of the movie.

David Dhawan has a distinct niche.  He makes broad comedies with a strong romantic track which manage to just pass the Indian censor board, and he's good at that.  Coolie No. 1 in particular is genuinely loved by a lot of people.  However, the movie can be a bit hard to watch for the first time in 2022,  The "trick the daughter of the man who insulted you into marrying under false pretenses" plan is kind of despicable, and it doesn't seem to bother the protagonists; they're upset that they have to keep coming up with new complicated lies rather than the simple ones they started with, but Raju in particular just wants to live with the wife who thinks he's someone else.

Hoshiyar Chand is even worse, with his insistence on marrying Shalini to the imaginary twin.  The movie's low point is the scene in which he tries to slip an aphrodisiac to the man he believes is an angry drunk and then leaves him alone with his daughter.  While the ladies are nice, the men are awful, but the movie ends with a happy reconciliation which is really not earned.

Once you get past all the awful people and a number of jokes that really didn't age well (in particular Shakti Kapoor's hearing aid, the fake Asian gibberish and the lead being in drag for the entire climactic fight) it's a well executed farce.  They really don't make them like this anymore, but on the other hand there's a reason for that.  And the less said about the swastika hat, the better.

(Okay, David Dhawan does make them like this anymore - the 2020 Coolie No. 1 is coming up next week.)