1. Bruce Almighty: God Tussi Great Ho
[wp_lightbox_prettyPhoto_image link=”http://newtemp.filmymantra.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/God-Tussi-Great-Ho-28-300×225.jpg” description=”” source=”http://newtemp.filmymantra.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/God-Tussi-Great-Ho-28-300×225.jpg” title=””]Some people say that Hollywood is out of ideas; those people have never been to India. Because there’s no way Bollywood would willingly choose to plagiarize Bruce Almighty. Remember, this is the movie that told us God gives His power to drunken losers for the sole purpose of fixing their love lives. And yet here it is. God Tussi Great Ho or “God, You Are Great” (and kinda retarded for giving away your powers) was released in 2008 and immediately was accused of blatant plagiarism.
The director responded by saying that the movie isn’t based on Bruce Almighty but a story of a village priest, which sounds like the vaguest, most half-assed explanation someone can pull out of their butt on short notice. They even casted Amitabh Bachan, who is basically India’s Morgan Freeman, as God and gave him the same damn white suit from Bruce Almighty. Village priest my arse.
The Hollywood Plot: Bruce is a TV anchor whose life is falling apart. He has a crippling love life and can’t get the TV job his coworker has. After blaming God for all his problems, God comes and gives Bruce His powers for 10 days. Bruce uses it to manipulate his life into getting better. Eventually Bruce is confronted with voices, which God says are prayers. Bruce answers yes to all the prayers, causing massive panic. Eventually God tells Bruce that the world is falling apart because he misused His powers. He resets Bruce’s life and Bruce wins the girl.
The Bollywood Plot: Arun is a TV anchor whose life is falling apart. He has no love life and his coworker got the TV promotion he wanted. After blaming God for his own problems, God visits him and offers to give him His powers for 10 days. Arun takes the offer and uses God’s power to manipulate his life. When confronted with voices, God tells him those are prayers. Instead of hearing them, he answers yes to all the prayers causing massive panic. Eventually okay that’s it! The similarities are too much! Why the hell would you rip off Bruce Al-freaking-mighty! It makes no sense, Bollywood. JUST STICK TO MINDLESS RAJNIKANTH ACTION CRAP, FOR MORGAN FREEMAN’S SAKE!
2. When Harry Met Sally: Hum Tum
[wp_lightbox_prettyPhoto_image link=”http://newtemp.filmymantra.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/humtum13_8x6-300×225.jpg” description=”” source=”http://newtemp.filmymantra.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/humtum13_8x6-300×225.jpg” title=””]Back when Billy Crystal was still relevant, he made When Harry Met Sally. The movie is basically founded on something that every guy was thinking anyway: a girl and a guy can’t be friends without boning each other. When it comes to movies, India has been conservative with PDA, so it changed this to “falling in love” (even though the leads have sexlater in the movie). We would understand if another movie was based on that idea, since it’s pretty common. But Hum Tum took this one step further with some of the elements of its plot.The Hollywood Plot: Harry gives Sally a ride one day, and they discuss whether a man and a woman can be friends without having sex. They split and bump into each other a few years later when they try to set up each other with their best friends. The plan backfires and the best friends get together. Finally, Harry and Sally decide to try a relationship and sleep together. After some strong guilt and awkward pauses, they fall in love.
The Bollywood Plot: Karan and Rhea meet up one day and have a conversation about whether a man and a woman can be friends without falling in love. A few years later, they bump into each other and decide to set each other up with their best friends, except then their best friends marry each other. Finally, they decide to give their relationship a shot, and sleep together. After some strong guilt and awkward pauses, they fall in love. AwwwWAIT.
3. The Parent Trap: Do Kaliyan
[wp_lightbox_prettyPhoto_image link=”http://newtemp.filmymantra.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/hqdefault-300×225.jpg” description=”” source=”http://newtemp.filmymantra.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/hqdefault-300×225.jpg” title=””]For most of us, our first thought when we think of The Parent Trap is “You mean whenLindsay Lohan wasn’t doing drugs?” which is fine, except that Do Kaliyan (or “two cheeks” in Hindi) came out way before Disney’s movie. Before our entire argument falls apart and you turn off this page in disgust, you should know that the Disney movie is actually a remake of an old 1961 film starring Brian Keith. Since we don’t know who that is, we’re just going to be offended on our parents’ behalf. Cue plot comparisons!The Hollywood Plot: NOT Lindsay Lohan and NOT Lindsay Lohan meet up at a summer camp and realize they’re siblings. They decide to switch places to meet their other parent and also to bring them together.
The Bollywood Plot: After a complicated back story regarding the parents, two twins meet up at a school field trip and realize they’re siblings. They decide to switch places so that they can bring their parents together again.
4. Clueless: Aisha
[wp_lightbox_prettyPhoto_image link=”http://newtemp.filmymantra.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/aisha_poster1-300×210.jpg” description=”” source=”http://newtemp.filmymantra.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/aisha_poster1-300×210.jpg” title=””]The 2010 film Aisha was pretty well received by audiences despite being on a long chain of plagiarized stories. Aisha ripped off 1995’s Clueless, which in turn ripped off Jane Austen’sEmma, which in turn ripped off every other Jane Austen book. In each case, the story is about a popular kid who knows she’s better than everyone until some event makes her realize that she IS better than everyone, oh and she’ll probably get the boy too. That’s okay, because the story is usually heartwarming enough that you’ll forget how much you hate the lead (See: Hitch/Partner, the male version of this story).The Hollywood Plot: Cher is a popular cheerleader (because of course she is) who plays matchmaker with everyone in her school, mostly to gain leverage. Except all her work backfires one day, and she loses her popular status. After a shopping spree, she decides that she needs to apologize to her friends (who are now popular) and then gets the boy. Wow, that was totally coherent.
The Bollywood Plot: Aisha is a popular kid who likes to play matchmaker with her friends. This all changes when she realizes she loves a guy names Arjun. In trying to get with him, she accidentally offends all her friends and everyone hates her. Finally, she realizes she was wrong and apologizes, which gets her the guy.
5. Sleeping With The Enemy: Daraar
[wp_lightbox_prettyPhoto_image link=”http://newtemp.filmymantra.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/daraar-570×427-300×224.jpg” description=”” source=”http://newtemp.filmymantra.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/daraar-570×427-300×224.jpg” title=””]Sleeping with the Enemy, albeit sounding like a spy thriller, is one of the most successful mainstream horror movies Hollywood has produced. Similarly, Daraar, which stars Juhi Chawla (India’s version of Julia Roberts) did very well in theaters, and both Patrick Bergin and Arbaaz Khan won nominations for their portrayal of abusive husbands. The success behind Daraar is actually quite baffling, considering Bollywood attempted two official remakes of SWTE (we’re too lazy to copy/paste) and both failed spectacularly. Maybe watching plagiarized movies provides some sort of primal thrill to Indian movie goers.The Hollywood Plot: Laura and Martin have been happily married and are living the good life. By which we mean that Martin is an abusive husband who beats Laura regularly. One day on a fishing outing, Laura falls overboard and makes it look like she drowned. She swims to shore and moves to a small town. Over there, she falls in love with Ben and everything starts looking until Martin finds out she’s alive and attempts to kill her. But with the help of Ben, Laura kills Martin.
The Bollywood Plot: Priya and Vikram have been happily married and are living the good life. By which we mean that Vikram is an abusive husband who beats Priya regularly. One day on a fishing outing, Priya falls overboard and makes it look like she drowned. She swims to shore and moves to a small town. Over there, she falls in love with Raj and everything starts looking until Vikram finds out she’s alive and attempts to kill her. But with the help of Raj, Priya kills Vikram.
6. My Best Friend’s Wedding: Meri Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai
[wp_lightbox_prettyPhoto_image link=”http://newtemp.filmymantra.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/MeriYaarKiShaadiHai-570×427-300×224.jpg” description=”” source=”http://newtemp.filmymantra.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/MeriYaarKiShaadiHai-570×427-300×224.jpg” title=””]In this case, Meri Yaar ki Shaadi Hai actually translates into “My best friend’s wedding” because screw subtlety. This 2002 Yash Chopra (read: excessively romantic) movie was Bollywood actress Bipasha Basu’s first mainstream debut. But, unlike its Julia Roberts counterpart, Meri Yaar actually grossed ten times more in its opening weekend than My Best Friend’s Wedding did in its entirety. Hooray for plagiarism! They actually went ahead and asked the director if he copied, to which he replied that only the word-for-word title and entire plot are similar, but that’s it! No Julia Roberts, for one thing.The Hollywood Plot: While living in America, Julianne gets a call from her old friend Michael who it turns out is getting married. As happy as she should be, Julianne realizes that she loves Michael and makes it her goal to ruin his marriage so that she can marry him.
The Bollywood Plot: While living in Mumbai, Sanjay gets a call from his old friend Anjali who it turns out is getting married. As happy as he should be, Sanjay realizes that he loves Anjali and makes it his goal to ruin her marriage so that he can marry her.See, it’s okay because they gender flipped.
8. What Happens in Vegas: Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu
[wp_lightbox_prettyPhoto_image link=”http://newtemp.filmymantra.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/EkMainAurEkkTu-570×427-300×224.jpg” description=”” source=”http://newtemp.filmymantra.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/EkMainAurEkkTu-570×427-300×224.jpg” title=””]This 2012 smash hit stars Bollywood veteran Karina Kapoor and newcomer Imran Khan in what is arguably the “Party Frat Guys” genre of Bollywood movies. Bear in mind this movie came out as recently as Valentine’s Day weekend.The Hollywood Plot: The movie takes place in Las Vegas where Jack and Joy have wee too many drinks at a club and end up getting married. They realize that they have 3 million dollars and the only way to claim it is by kicking the other out of the marriage. In the end, they decide they want to keep their marriage.
The Bollywood Plot: The movie takes place in Las Vegas where Rahul and Riana have way too many drinks at a club and end up getting married. In the morning, they realize their mistake and try to get their marriage annulled. The judge asks them for some time, and asks them to think it over. After an evening of wacky hijinks, they decide they want to keep the marriage.
9. Hitch: Partner
[wp_lightbox_prettyPhoto_image link=”http://newtemp.filmymantra.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/partner-570×427-300×224.jpg” description=”” source=”http://newtemp.filmymantra.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/partner-570×427-300×224.jpg” title=””]Hitch was that Will Smith movie that just made everyone awkward. So, its baffling when you consider that Bollywood decided it was ripe material for ripping. Oh, and maybe it has something to do with the $175 million it grossed worldwide.The Hollywood Plot: Alex is a professional date doctor who match-makes people into good relationships. This all changes when he meets the one girl he can’t get; a pretty gossip columnist. After trying to woo her with every trick in his book, he eventually just acts like himself and wins her over.
The Bollywood Plot: Prem is a “love guru” who helps people out by matchmaking them with seemingly the perfect person. This all changes when he meets the one woman he can’t get, a single widowed mother. After some hilarious misunderstandings involving one night stands, Prem gets the girl.
10. Bonnie and Clyde: Bunty Aur Babli
[wp_lightbox_prettyPhoto_image link=”http://newtemp.filmymantra.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/buntyaurbabli-570×427-300×224.jpg” description=”” source=”http://newtemp.filmymantra.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/buntyaurbabli-570×427-300×224.jpg” title=””]The romantic tale of Bonnie and Clyde has captivated audiences since they hit the big screen in 1967. It isn’t unexpected for there to be some copying of the tale considering its success. But we must say Bollywood’s take on the story is pretty original considering the source material they had to work with. Although, the film didn’t pass up the opportunity to give their characters funny little names (Bunty and Babli aren’t real names in Hindi, whitepeople). The movie was made even more hilarious since it starred the protagonist’s real life father as the primary villain, leading to all sorts of inside jokes only people in India got.The Hollywood Plot: Bonnie and Clyde meet up while trying to escape their small town life. They run a number of small cons before really getting busy. Their thefts get the attention of the law enforcement who hounds them relentlessly. Finally, one of their former partners sells them out and Bonnie and Clyde are surrounded and well, killed.
The Bollywood Plot: Rakesh and Vimmi meet up while trying to escape their small town life. After successfully running a con on someone that screwed them both, they discover that they have a gift. After running more and more elaborate cons (such as selling the Taj Mahal), they attract the attention of a cop who makes it his goal to apprehend them. Finally, after a risky con the duo are surrounded. However, they are let go on the promise that they stop stealing stuff (because asking nicely always works).
