Hari Puttar: A Comedy of Terrors

Last updated

Hari Puttar
Hari Puttar, A Comedy of Terrors.jpeg
Directed byLucky Kohli & Rajesh Bajaj
Produced byA.P. Parigi
Starring Sarika
Zain Khan
Swini Khara
Jackie Shroff
Saurabh Shukla
Vijay Raaz
Shamita Shetty
Music by Aadesh Shrivastav
Guru Sharma
Distributed by Mirchi Movies
Release date
  • 26 September 2008 (2008-09-26)
Running time
86 minutes [1]
CountryIndia
LanguageHindi

Hari Puttar is a 2008 Indian comedy film directed by Lucky Kohli & Rajesh Bajaj. The film features Sarika, Zain Khan, Swini Khara, Saurabh Shukla, Vijay Raaz, Jackie Shroff and Lilette Dubey. [2] It was released on 26 September 2008. The plot of the film is very similar to the 1990 film Home Alone. [3]

Contents

Plot

The film revolves around a ten-year-old boy, Hari Prasad Dhoonda (nicknamed Hari Puttar), who has recently moved from India to the United Kingdom. Left home alone with his cousin Tuk Tuk when his parents go on vacation, Hari must deal with two burglars who hope to steal a secret formula Hari's father had created.

Cast

Soundtrack

The soundtrack for Hari Puttar features songs composed by Aadesh Shrivastav with lyrics by Sameer:

Reception

Insiyah Vahanvaty of Rediff.com gave the film 3 out of 5, writing, "Despite a few let-downs, the film is engaging and funny, keeping the children at the theatre in splits at the bumbling goondas. Do take your kids for the fun ride!" [4]

Conversely, Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express gave a negative review, calling the script of the film a "script which doesn’t know the meaning of sense." [5] Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave the film 1 out of 5, writing, "Zain Khan does a decent job. Swini Khara, seen in CHEENI KUM, gets no scope. Sarika looks disinterested. Also, she looks ill at ease delivering Punjabi lines. Lilette Dubey is miscast. As for Jackie Shroff, the less said the better. It's also sad to see actors like Saurabh Shukla and Vijay Raaz being reduced to such roles. They ham! On the whole, HARI PUTTAR - A COMEDY OF TERRORS is a poor show all the way." [6]

Controversy

Warner Bros. filed a lawsuit against production company Mirchi Movies to stop the release of the film due to the similarity of its title to that of the Harry Potter series. Delhi High Court threw out the case on the basis that the public would be able to differentiate between the two titles, and that Warner had chosen to wait three years until the film's release to file their case. [2] [7]

Mirchi Movies CEO Munish Purii has insisted that there is very little similarity between Hari Puttar and any elements in the Harry Potter franchise, and explained that Hari is a popular Indian name, while "puttar" means "son" in the Punjabi language. [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aadesh Shrivastava</span> Indian musician

Aadesh Shrivastava was a music composer and singer of Indian music. Initially, he had worked as a drummer to music composers including R. D. Burman, Rajesh Roshan before working independently as a music director. Over the course of his career, he had composed music for over 100 Hindi films. Just a day after he turned 51, he died of cancer in Kokilaben Hospital.

<i>Cheeni Kum</i> 2007 film by R. Balki

Cheeni Kum is a 2007 Indian Hindi-language romantic comedy film directed by R. Balki and starring Amitabh Bachchan, Tabu, Paresh Rawal, Zohra Sehgal and Swini Khara.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saurabh Shukla</span> Indian actor

Saurabh Shukla is a National Award-winning Indian actor, screenwriter, and film director who works in Hindi and a few Tamil and Telugu films. He is famous for his roles in Satya (1998), Nayak: The Real Hero (2001), Yuva (2004), Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006), Barfi! (2012), Jolly LLB (2013), Kick (2014), PK (2014), Jolly LLB 2 (2017), Raid (2018) and Drishyam 2 (2022). He has also worked in a short documentary with Ruth Agnihotri and Rachael Agnihotri in Goa.

<i>Chehraa</i> 2005 Indian film

Chehraa, is a 2005 Indian Hindi-language thriller film, starring Bipasha Basu, Dino Morea, Preeti Jhangiani, and Irrfan Khan. The film is directed by Saurabh Shukla. This movie is Saurabh Shukla's second directorial movie after his debut movie Mudda - The Issue.

<i>Aan: Men at Work</i> 2004 Indian film

Aan: Men at Work is a 2004 Indian action drama film directed by Madhur Bhandarkar. It features an ensemble cast consisting of Akshay Kumar, Shatrughan Sinha, Sunil Shetty and Paresh Rawal in the leading roles, while Jackie Shroff, Irrfan Khan, Raveena Tandon, Lara Dutta, Om Puri, Rahul Dev, Manoj Joshi, Rajpal Yadav, Preeti Jhangiani and Ravi Kishan played supporting roles. It was released on 4 June 2004.

Since first coming to wide notice in the late 1990s, the Harry Potter book series by J. K. Rowling has been the subject of a number of legal disputes. Rowling, her various publishers and Time Warner, the owner of the rights to the Harry Potter films, have taken numerous legal actions to protect their copyrights, and also have fielded accusations of copyright theft themselves. The worldwide popularity of the Harry Potter series has led to the appearance of a number of locally-produced, unauthorised sequels and other derivative works, leading to efforts to ban or contain them. While these legal proceedings have countered a number of cases of outright piracy, other attempts have targeted not-for-profit endeavours and have been criticised.

<i>Mumbai Matinee</i> 2003 Indian film

Mumbai Matinee is a 2003 Indian romantic comedy film directed and written by Anant Balani and starring Rahul Bose as a 32-year-old virgin. The film premiered on 26 September 2003 and was also released in the UK. Director Anant Balani died before the film was released on 29 August 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sameer Anjaan</span> Indian lyricist

Shitala Pandey, better known as Sameer Anjaan or Sameer, is an Indian lyricist, known for writing songs predominantly for Bollywood films. He is a Guinness World Record holder for writing the most songs.

<i>Delhi Belly</i> (film) 2011 film by Abhinay Deo

Delhi Belly is a 2011 Indian action comedy film written by Akshat Verma and directed by Abhinay Deo. It stars Imran Khan, Kunaal Roy Kapur, Vir Das, Poorna Jagannathan and Shenaz Treasurywala. It is a Hinglish-language film, with seventy percent of the dialogue in English and thirty percent in Hindi. The film is produced by Aamir Khan Productions and UTV Motion Pictures. The theatrical trailer of the film premiered with Aamir Khan's Dhobi Ghat on 21 January 2011 while the film was released on 1 July 2011, along with a Hindi dubbed version. The film was given an 'A' certificate for its profanity, intense violence and sexual content and is often dubbed as a modern cult classic. The film was remade in Tamil as Settai.

<i>Xcuse Me</i> 2003 Indian film

Xcuse Me is a 2003 Hindi-language comedy film directed by N. Chandra. It is the sequel to N. Chandra's 2001 film Style. The film was released on 26 September 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swini Khara</span> Indian actress

Swini Nimesh Khara is an Indian former actress and a lawyer. She is known for her role as the mischievous Chaitali in the TV show Baa Bahoo Aur Baby and for a role in the 2007 film Cheeni Kum. She announced her engagement with Urvish Desai to her fans through her Instagram account.

<i>No Problem</i> (2010 film) 2010 Indian film

No Problem is a 2010 Indian Hindi-language action comedy film directed by Anees Bazmee and produced by Rajat Rawail and Anil Kapoor. The film stars Anil Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt, Suniel Shetty, Akshaye Khanna, Paresh Rawal, Sushmita Sen, Kangana Ranaut, Neetu Chandra and Shakti Kapoor in the lead roles while Ranjeet, Mukesh Tiwari, Jeetu Verma, Vishwajeet Pradhan, Suresh Menon and Vijay Raaz are featured in supporting yet crucial roles. Shooting began in July 2010. It was shot in South Africa and Mumbai. No Problem released worldwide on 10 December 2010, to a negative reception and was a flop.

<i>Jung</i> (2000 film) 2000 Indian film

Jung (transl. Battle) is a 2000 Indian Hindi-language action thriller film directed by Sanjay Gupta. The film features Sanjay Dutt, Jackie Shroff, Aditya Pancholi, Raveena Tandon and Shilpa Shetty. The film has some similarities to the Hollywood film Desperate Measures.

Desi Magic is an unreleased Indian romantic comedy film, directed by Mehul Atha and produced by Ameesha Patel and Kuunal Goomer under the banner of Ameesha Patel Productions. It stars actors Ameesha Patel, Esha Gupta, Zayed Khan and Sahil Shroff. The film has been in post production since 2014 and since 2015 its release was delayed.

<i>Bhoot Unkle</i> 2006 Indian film

Bhoot Unkle is a 2006 Indian Hindi-language supernatural comedy film which released on 6 October 2006.The film is directed by Mukesh Saigal, starring Jackie Shroff and Dev K. Kantawall.

<i>Dil Pe Mat Le Yaar!!</i> 2000 Bollywood drama film

Dil Pe Mat Le Yaar!! is a 2000 Indian comedy-drama film directed by Hansal Mehta, written by Saurabh Shukla and produced by Ajay Tuli, Anish and Hansal Mehta. It stars Manoj Bajpayee, Tabu, Saurabh Shukla and Aditya Srivastava in pivotal roles.

<i>Raid</i> (2018 film) 2018 Indian film directed by Raj Kumar Gupta

Raid is a 2018 Indian Hindi-language crime film directed by Raj Kumar Gupta. It stars Ajay Devgn, Saurabh Shukla and Ileana D'Cruz. The film is based on the real life income-tax raid conducted by the officers of Income Tax Department on Sardar Inder Singh in the 1980s, which distinguished itself from others for being the longest raid in Indian history.

<i>Bala</i> (2019 film) 2019 Hindi-language social problem comedy film

Bala is a 2019 Hindi-language satirical black comedy film directed by Amar Kaushik and produced by Dinesh Vijan, based on an original story by Bengali film director Pavel Bhattacharjee. It stars Ayushmann Khurrana, Bhumi Pednekar and Yami Gautam.

<i>War</i> (2019 film) 2019 film by Siddharth Anand

War is a 2019 Indian Hindi-language action thriller film co-written and directed by Siddharth Anand and produced by Aditya Chopra under Yash Raj Films. The third installment in the YRF Spy Universe, the film stars Hrithik Roshan, Tiger Shroff and Vaani Kapoor in lead roles. The film follows Khalid Rahmani, an Indian RAW agent and soldier, who is assigned to eliminate his former mentor Kabir Dhaliwal, who has gone rogue.

References

  1. ↑ "Hari Puttar - A Comedy of Terrors - Movie - Box Office India". Archived from the original on 6 July 2023. Retrieved 6 July 2023.
  2. 1 2 "Warner Bros lose Hari Puttar case". 22 September 2008. Archived from the original on 21 April 2023. Retrieved 23 September 2008– via news.bbc.co.uk.
  3. ↑ "Hari Puttar fails to conjure Harry Potter magic". The Guardian . 27 September 2008. Archived from the original on 28 June 2021. Retrieved 18 June 2021.
  4. ↑ Vahanvaty, Insiyah (26 September 2008). "Take your kids to Hari Puttar!". Rediff.com . Archived from the original on 6 January 2024. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  5. ↑ "Hari Puttar, A Comedy Of Terrors". 27 September 2008. Archived from the original on 24 December 2023. Retrieved 24 December 2023.
  6. ↑ Adarsh, Taran (26 September 2008). "Hari Puttar – A Comedy of Terrors Review". Bollywood Hungama . Archived from the original on 4 May 2024. Retrieved 24 December 2023.
  7. ↑ "'Harry Potter' takes shot at 'Hari Puttar'". The New York Times. 26 August 2008. ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on 1 November 2021. Retrieved 1 November 2021.
  8. ↑ Bhushan, Nyay (25 August 2008). "Warners suit takes issue with Indian film's title". Reuters. Archived from the original on 24 June 2021. Retrieved 18 June 2021– via www.reuters.com.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.