Heyy Babyy

About the film

Heyy Babyy is a 2007 Indian Hindi-language comedy film produced by Sajid Nadiadwala and directed by Sajid Khan. It stars Akshay Kumar, Fardeen Khan, Riteish Deshmukh, Vidya Balan, Juanna Sanghvi and Boman Irani.

The core storyline of this film is loosely based on the Malayalam film Thoovalsparsham (1990) which is an adaptation of the American film Three Men and a Baby (1987), in turn based on the French film Three Men and a Cradle.

Plot

Aarush Mehra lives a fairly wealthy lifestyle in Sydney, Australia, with roommates Tanmay Joglekar and Ali Haider. Aarush starts working for a popular dance club, while Tanmay entertains children as Eddy Teddy and Ali takes care of their apartment. He mostly watches cricket on the television and places bets on the matches. All three are womanizers and usually end up sleeping with different women.

One day they find a baby girl outside their door with a note instructing them to take care of her, since one of them is her father. The three men go to all the women they dated and slept with, but none claim the baby as theirs, and they break up with them. The men try to take care of the baby, but she becomes a huge pain and annoys them. So they drop her off at a house near a church and leave her there by herself. Then they all set off for a Christmas party, but they are all thinking of the baby. A big rainstorm occurs, and the baby develops pneumonia after being left in the rain. The three men rush the baby to the hospital, realizing how much they love her, and regret their decisions. She recovers, and the three become changed men. They love her, pamper her, grow an attachment towards her, and even apologize to all the women they used. They named her Angel due to the miracle that she survived.

One morning, a woman named Isha Sahni comes to take Angel back, claiming the baby to be her daughter. The guys are shocked as Aarush tells them about his past life. One year ago, Aarush traveled to Delhi to attend his cousin Arjun's wedding. There, he met Isha, who also resides in Australia. He put up a facade of being a guy with traditional Indian values, won her over, and they spent the night together and had sex. Shortly after, Isha caught him in a compromising situation with Devika Sharma, Isha's friend, so the couple split up. It wasn't Aarush's fault, as Devika forced herself on top of him to have sex. Aarush returned to Sydney and forgot about the incident. Their history together indicates that Aarush is truly Angel's father.

Production

Filming began on Jan 26 2007 and ended in May 2007 . Most of the shooting took place in Australia while some in Filmistan Studio in Mumbai. An Australian features in a promotional video which was not to be in the film. The girl band from Sydney are called the Girlband.

Soundtrack

The film's music is composed by Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy with lyrics penned by Sameer.

The album received favourable reviews from major critics. Joginder Tuteja of Bollywood Hungama in his four-star review, said that the album is a "must-buy": "The music score of Heyy Babyy is undoubtedly the best soundtrack of the year so far. Every track is a gem in its own way." Sukanya Verma of Rediff described the album as "a peppy soundtrack".

The album made its debut at No. 6 in the charts, later climbed up to the top 5 and remained consistent in the middle of the charts. According to the Indian trade website Box Office India, with around 12,00,000 units sold, this film's soundtrack album was the year's tenth highest-selling.

Reception

Taran Adarsh of IndiaFM gave the film four out of five stars saying it "is an entertainer that has something for everyone". He praised the performances of the lead stars.

Conversely, Raha Sen of Rediff.com gave the film a negative review, writing, "Sajid, dude, make a Borat-style film with Kishan Jhuthani. Or try horror shorts like in Darna Zaroori Hai. This moronic film is less than you're capable of. Far less."

Heyy Babyy opened to packed houses in over 650 cinemas in India. The opening was at 90%+ and continued to do well in the days following. It grossed ₹500 million (US$5.2 million) in India, $1.4 million in the US and £763,000 in the UK and was declared a "super-hit".

Key details