The Wacky Schemes in Farah Khan’s Films, Ranked

The films of Farah Khan — the undisputed queen of masala entertainment — are a delightful concoction of drama, campiness, wicked humour, and a genuine, unabashed love for Hindi cinema.  She punctured through the landscape with her directorial debut, Main Hoon Na (2004), starring Shah Rukh Khan (SRK), like a hero bursting through her own poster (SRK and Farah would become frequent collaborators, with him appearing as the lead in three out of four of her films). In an industry like the Hindi cinema’s, where the directorial landscape was essentially a boys' club, Khan gatecrashed the scene by being unapologetically over-the-top, and just the right amount of hammy. 

She is four movies old, and as a director with a filmography that spans two decades, each of the ventures, even ones with lower critical acclaim, is bestrewn with references as a homage to the iconic cinema that came before through meta jokes, and self-referential humour that amps up her own projects as a part of that tapestry (you would be surprised at the amount of Hindi film trivia you might have missed in Om Shanti Om). In doing so, she has carved a niche for herself, and managed to further a genre that presumably had a lower currency in multiplex Bollywood. 

There’s one other thing that is common in all her films (and no, it’s not Shah Rukh Khan). There's always a side-splitting, absolutely bonkers plan at the centre of her plot. Khan is a mastermind of wild ideas that are gratifying to our sensibilities for larger-than-life drama. So, as a toast to Farah Khan, the captain of capers, we’re ranking our favourite wacky plans in her films to celebrate our undying fandom for them. 

4. Main Hoon Na - SRK Goes Undercover for Foreign Policy and Parivaar

What is at stake is good foreign diplomacy in this spiffing debut directorial. The first of two plans in this film includes Major Ram (Shah Rukh Khan) going undercover to St Paul's College in order to protect his boss’s daughter (Amrita Rao). He needs to keep a low profile not just because this is a covert mission, but also because the daughter concerned has an iffy relationship with her sexist father who wanted a son in her stead. (How Ram spreading his arms and singing, “Chaand mera dil chaandni ho tum…(My heart is the moon and you're the moonlight)”  for the Chemistry teacher, aptly named Chandni (Sushmita Sen) qualifies as a covert mission? Nobody knows. But love, and accidents happen, and we are here for it.)

The other plan which is not-so-unhinged but definitely worthy of a mention, is Major Ram embarking on a mission of familial acceptance — specifically, to integrate into his step brother Laxman’s (Zayed Khan)  and stepmother Madhu’s (Kirron Kher) abode, which his father Brigadier Ram Sharma, played by Naseeruddin Shah, forsook because his wife could not accept the child of another woman as her own. While this doesn’t itself register as bizarre, this is a Farah Khan product. There are no straightforward hugs and apologies here, and Khan’s sublime eccentricity leaks in. 

The arch villain, Raghavan Datta — a bitter ex-army officer played by Suniel Shetty — who is against Indo-Pak peace, and also the murderer of Ram and Laxman’s father, spills the truth about Ram’s identity to Laxman and Madhu (he is just as passionate about wreaking havoc in the domestic space, as he is for domestic policy). They were unaware of Ram’s true identity till that point, thus spoiling his plan of coming clean eventually. Madhu offers her unconditional acceptance to Ram only after he saves her son from a hostage situation devised by, as you guessed, Raghavan. Do we think this is possible? Irrelevant. Did we cry our eyes out when Madhu accepted Ram? You bet.

3. Om Shanti Om - SRK Avenges his Past Love and Himself

In the spectacle that is Om Shanti Om, the plan is to do a Karz (1980) style music launch with a hidden agenda. Our protagonist, Om Kapoor (or O.K., as he’s called by those around him) played by Shah Rukh Khan, armed with his rag-tag gang of justice seekers, hatches a scheme to make the formidable Mukesh Mehra (Arjun Rampal) believe in the supernatural. Why? Because in his past life, Om Prakash Makhija (also Shah Rukh Khan), a junior artist falls in love with the “Dreamy Girl” Shantipriya (Deepika Padukone). Shanti is already secretly married to the villainous producer Mukesh — who doesn’t value her “ek chutki sindoor (a pinch of vermillion)”. Mukesh plots to kill Shanti when he finds out she is pregnant, and makes it look like an “accidental” fire on their grand set. Om Prakash, the desperate lover tries his best to save Shanti’s life but fails and succumbs to the same fire.

Now reincarnated, rich, and famous, Om Kapoor, entraps Mukesh in his scheme by manipulating him into producing their new film. The grand plot unfolds at the aforementioned music launch for the film, where they try to convince him that the vengeful "ghost" of Shantipriya will expose him as her cold-hearted killer. Not only do they manage to find a look-alike for Shantipriya —Sandhya (also Deepika Padukone) — the actual ghost of Shantipriya also aids and abets them in this entrapment. It's drama, chaos, stunts and theatrics that could rival a Shakespearean farce. 

2. Tees Maar Khan (2010) -  a Cuckoo Train to Hollywood

By her third film, Khan’s plans have gotten progressively more banal, and arguably therefore, more enjoyable. In Tees Maar Khan, Akshay Kumar plays the eponymous criminal mastermind who is commissioned to loot a train carrying antiques by the Johri brothers (Raghu Ram and Rajiv Laxman), two conjoined twins and wanted criminals. His plan is to take an Oscar-hungry Bollywood star, Aatish Kapoor (Akshaye Khanna), convince him that he’s Hollywood director Manoj "Day" Ramalin, who is supposed to be M. Night Shyamalan’s brother, and make a movie about a train heist. If you have managed to stick with the film so far, you will be rewarded by a string of absurd plot twists — like when the villagers crowdfund this fake film — and a recurring “over and out” joke. But the plan worked out for Tees Maar Khan, even if the film didn’t work for the critics. 

1. Happy New Year (2014) - SRK Proves his Father is not a Thief

This is at the top of ranking because it is a heist film where the plan is to lose an international dance championship to have a grab at precious diamonds which are protected by the safest vault security in the world. Read that again, and chew over its implications. Charan Grover (Jackie Shroff), the power-hungry owner of Shalimar Securities deceives Manohar Sharma (Anupam Kher), Charlie’s (Shah Rukh) father, who gets convicted for theft. Charlie, our protagonist, has been plotting his revenge for eight years, and it is after spending a copious amount of time as a street fighter and being roughed up by the world, he has finally decided that the best course of action is to participate in a dance competition with his friends who can’t dance. This is because they can have access to the vault because of the hotel they will stay at for the competition.

Step one is to hire a dance teacher, so naturally they get a Saroj Khan look-alike who gives up on them, and then find themselves at the mercy of Mohini (Deepika Padukone), a bar dancer who hops on board this very dangerous heist because she’s struck by Charlie’s fluency in the English language. Mohini tirelessly trains the group which consists of  bomb expert Jag (Sonu Sood), safebreaker Tammy (Boman Irani), hacker Rohan (Vivaan Shah) and Nandu Bhide (Abhishek Bachchan), who uncannily resembles Charan’s son Vikky, so his attributes can be used to break into the vault. Mohini, competent as she is, does her job so well that they end up winning the competition, which leads them to recalibrate their original plan, and find a different way to make Charan repent.

BONUS:

While this isn't Khan's brainchild, in Aatish Kapadia’s Khichdi: The Movie (2010), Khan, playing herself, jumps on-board for a hilariously harebrained scheme. Himanshu (J D Majethia) realises his love story lacks the spice of chaos. It isn't an iconic romance without a few hurdles, right? So, what does he do? He decides to spice things up by creating obstacles in his own romantic path. Enter Farah Khan, the director who casts him in a film just to ruffle feathers — because, of course, the bride's family despises film stars. Nobody nails the role of Farah Khan quite like Farah Khan herself. She goes all in as the director perennially on the verge of hair-tearing madness as part of this “grand plan” to ruin Himanshu’s love life. This only goes to prove that Khan loves all zany plans.