Hari Puttar: A Comedy of Terrors (2008) Online

When I heard about "Hari Puttar" for the first time, the title made me smile and hope for a nice Harry Potter parody or anything else even loosely based on Harry Potter. After all, there are numerous Harry Potter clones ("Tanya Grotter" in Russia, "Porri Gatter" in Belarus, "Barry Trotter" in Germany, etc.), so why couldn't there be a nice Bollywood version? Especially all the noise Time Warner made about it was all I needed to go and purchase it.

What a waste! First of all, the movie has nothing in common with Harry Potter at all. On the contrary, it seems to be a loose remake of "Home Alone". It is the story of a boy and a girl who were "forgotten" by their parents when they left for a trip, and now find themselves forced to defend the house against two clumsy bad guys. Obviously, the movie is supposed to be a comedy, but as such it has become a complete failure. The so-called humour is of the lowest standard. The scenario is a bad joke in itself, characterised by the silliest texts one can imagine, the story lacks a single good idea, and the acting is plain horrible. Even the presence of such capable actors as Jackie Shroff and Lilette Dubey cannot be of any help here.

This is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Yet, I don't even think Hari Puttar will ever make it into a cult movie of the "so bad it's good" type. The movie is just embarrassing, not amusing at all, and poorly made. In fact, it is one of the rare movies that have made me angry.

Somebody called it an "average film but an entertaining one for kids". Well, if I were a kid, I would feel insulted by such low level. In my opinion, this movie is neither average nor entertaining; it's merely boring and utterly silly. Obviously, its creators don't have a clue regarding kids. As a matter of fact, Hari Puttar has only one advantage: for Bollywood standards, it is extremely short. But even then, 90 minutes were more than enough to make me yawn with relief when it was finally over.

I really didn't have much clue as to what this would be about and had briefly heard that it was similar to "Home Alone" which starred McCullyculkin.

Hari Prasad's father, a professor in a University in India, who has been working on a top secret project, moves to the UK (United Kingdom) with his family and stays in the countryside. Soon Hari's cousins arrive on the scene and he has to move out of his room and feels that he is not loved by anyone but is soon joined by one of his female cousins, who suffers from breathing related problems. Soon the two are left alone. In the meantime, two criminals arrive on the scene and try to get into the House to get a micro chip.

Starring Jackie Shroff, Sarika, Zain Khan, Swini Khara (Chaitali of "Baa Bahu Aur Baby series), Rez Kempton and Vijay Raaz.

This is a purely for children and can be considered to be quite entertaining. However it can't be said that its not identical to "Home Alone" as it is in quite a few ways and not in some others. The movie also has it s flaws, which I was not looking for but some, more than others, stood out. Those who know the map of the United Kingdom and the areas will definitely pick them up and one being a map that was shown. This shows "Lancaster" as town, which is quite correct but it also shows Cheshire as a town, which is incorrect as this is a county, a state, such as, for example, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, California, etc. The other most outstanding flaw is that the mother keeps on mentioning that she wants to go back to London but she does not mention where in London, which is a capital and is a large city like Mumbai, Delhi, Washington, etc.

This is an average, entertaining film for children but it does have its flaws.