Andaz Naya Naya

About the film

Andaz Apna Apna (transl. Everyone Has Their Own Style) is a 1994 Indian Hindi-language action comedy film written and directed by Rajkumar Santoshi and produced by Vinay Kumar Sinha. It stars Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Raveena Tandon, Karisma Kapoor, Paresh Rawal (in a dual role) and Shakti Kapoor. The film focuses on two gold diggers who attempt to woo an heiress to have access to her father's wealth. They soon realize that the heiress has exchanged her identity with that of her secretary. By that point, one of them is genuinely in love with the heiress, and the other gold digger has fallen for the secretary.

The film was released on 4 November 1994 and the plot elements of the film were later used in other language films such as Ullathai Allitha (1996), Veedevadandi Babu (1997) and Galate Aliyandru (2000). The climax of this film is a rehashed version of the climax of a 1972 film Victoria No. 203. Although the film was unsuccessful at the box office, the film has since emerged as a cult film.

Plot

Both Amar Manohar and Prem Bhopali are daydreamers living with their fathers Murli and Bankelal respectively. They learn that millionaire Ram Gopal Bajaj's daughter Raveena Bajaj is coming to India from London with her secretary Karishma to find a suitable groom. Amar and Prem decide to woo Raveena to get a share in her father's wealth.

Amar and Prem meet each other when they escape from their towns and board a bus bound for Ooty where Raveena and Karishma live. They soon realise that they have the same goal and they also fail at several attempts to woo Raveena and Karishma but they manage to enter their house.

Amar pretends that he has lost his memory and eyesight after getting knocked out by Raveena when he tried to flirt with her, while Prem pretends to be a doctor at their house to cure him of his diseases but he unknowingly falls in love with Karishma.

Production

After the success of his debut film Ghayal (1990), director Rajkumar Santoshi was approached by producer Vinay Kumar Sinha for a film. The latter wanted to make a film with Aamir Khan. Having made a film on a serious subject, Santoshi wanted to make a comedy film now. It was then decided that he would write a story about two warring buddies, the human versions of Tom and Jerry. Santoshi wrote the screenplay with Dilip Shukla, also modelling the characters on Archie comics. Despite the film feeling impromptu, every scene and dialogue was in the script. The film was in production for over three years.

Santoshi then decided to cast Salman Khan followed by then relative newcomers Karisma Kapoor and Raveena Tandon as the female leads along with Paresh Rawal in a double role. Santoshi finished the script after the casting. He also wrote several dialogues on the set which were in his mind and not in the script. Amrish Puri was supposed to play the role of Mogambo's younger brother, Zorambo. But due to the length of the film, the character was removed. Sunny Deol was supposed to do a cameo in the film, who was not available at that time. It was done by Govinda.

Initially, Salman Khan wanted more screen space than the other but later agreed to have the same amount of screen time. Tinnu Anand was offered the role of the villain "Gogo", but could not do it because of date issues. It was eventually played by Shakti Kapoor. While shooting, Santoshi had to call for a cut as almost the entire crew including the director of photography laughed so hard that it shook the camera. The Muhurat shot was done by cricketer Sachin Tendulkar. Andaz Apna Apna took three years in making, which resulted in some continuity issues. Ishwar Bidri was the director of photography while V. N. Mayekar served as the editor.

Soundtrack

The film featured 7 songs composed by Tushar Bhatia with lyrics by Majrooh Sultanpuri.

Vocals for Salman Khan were performed by his then-frequent collaborator SP Balasubrahmanyam.

Reception

The film was commercially unsuccessful at the box-office. Its total domestic gross was ₹8.18 crore, and its overseas gross was $150,000, bringing its worldwide gross to ₹8.653 crore (equivalent to ₹57 crore or US$6.0 million in 2023).

The lack of publicity and tough competition from other films of that year were reasons for its business. Santoshi also attributes the failure to the fact that the film was not released and distributed well due to a new distributor. All of these films were very strong in their box office presence and Andaz Apna Apna, belonging to a different genre, could not compete well. It has however, in subsequent years, achieved a cult classic status among Hindi audiences.

While reviewing Grand Masti in 2013, critic Khalid Mohamed described Andaz Apna Apna in the "collection of excellent comedies" from Hindi cinema. Film critic Raja Sen called it a "cornball classic" and "one of the greatest comedies in recent times." In 2014, comedian Aditi Mittal wrote: "Writing about Andaz Apna Apna, I have realized, is like writing about mother's love. Everyone has their own version of how it affects them, what lines they remember the most." The film was featured in Filmfare's 100 Days series. This movie is available on YouTube.

Legacy

Several dialogues from this film like "Teja main hu. Mark Idhar hai", "Crime Master Gogo, Mogambo ka Bhatija", "Do dost ek cup me chai piyenge" etc., are popular. It went on to be an inspiration for the plot element of the Tamil film Ullathai Allitha, the Telugu film Veedevadandi Babu and the Kannada film Galate Aliyandru. Andaz Apna Apna did not have a bound script most of the dialogues were improvised by the cast and crew during the shoot of the film. The film was featured in Filmfare's 100 Days series. It was voted as the 2nd best Bollywood comedy film of all time in an online poll conducted by The Indian Express.

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