Hera Pheri (हेरा फेरी) is a Bollywood comedy film released in the year 2000. In context, the title is roughly translated as "monkey business".
The plot revolves around three poor men: Baburao, Raju, and Shyam. Baburao is the owner of Star Garage and Raju is his tenant. Shyam, who comes to Mumbai in the hopes of getting his late father's job, meets with Baburao in order to get a temporary place to live. Here he meets Raju with whom he had earlier, through a misunderstanding, got into a brawl over a stolen wallet. This sets up the comedic backdrop of the relationship between the three: Raju and Shyam constantly get into arguments leaving Baburao at his wits end.
One of the running jokes in the movie is that Baburao periodically gets phone calls regarding the status of the caller's fish, frustrating him to no end. This ends up playing a key role when a terrorist group phones the trio claiming that he has their granddaughter in custody. Once past their confusion, they find out that the phone book mixed up the numbers for Star Garage and Star Fisheries. In their desperation to get money, they decide to be the middle men in the hostage situation, pretending to be the owner of Star Fisheries when talking to the kidnappers and pretending to be the kidnappers when calling the owner. What results is sheer comedic genius.
This is one of the funniest Hindi movies I've seen. The acting is incredibly well done, and the timing of the jokes and slapstick is perfect. I've found that the English subtitles do not do the movie justice, but, if you want a taste of India's best comedy, or just Bollywood's best in general, this movie is definitely a must watch.
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