Desi Boyz

Plot

The story follows two friends and roommates, the Gujarati rebel Jignesh 'Jerry' Patel (Akshay Kumar) and clean simpleton Nikhil 'Nick' Mathur (John Abraham), who live in London. Jerry does odd jobs for a living as he is an undergraduate but Nick has a white-collar job. However, both find themselves jobless due to the economic downturn. Jerry has a school-age nephew named Veer (Master Virej Desai) whom he looks after, as the child has lost his parents. Nick intends to marry his girlfriend, Radhika Awasthi (Deepika Padukone), who dreams of a lovely wedding, a great honeymoon and a wonderful house to live in after marriage.

Out of a job, Jerry finds it difficult to even pay the school fees of his nephew because of which the government is on the verge of giving the custody of his nephew to a foster family. Nick fears he won’t be able to fulfill the dreams of his to-be wife. It is to tide over the difficult times that Jerry and Nick turn to the oldest profession in the world. Jerry and Nick become male escorts for the company "Desi Boyz", fulfilling the fantasies of girls and ladies. Nonetheless, Jerry is unable to prevent his nephew from being sent to a foster home; and Nick loses Radhika when she learns of what he has been up to while she is away in India. Frustrated, Nick blames Jerry for forcing him into the profession and asks him to move out of his house and life.

Nick now tries to win Radhika back and help comes from the most unlikely source – Radhika’s father Suresh (Anupam Kher) who has come to London with her. Meanwhile, Jerry registers in college again to complete his graduation so that he can earn enough money to get his nephew back home. In college, Jerry meets Tanya Sharma (Chitrangada Singh) who used to be his classmate and is now a professor at the same college. Sparks fly between Jerry and Tanya. To make Nick jealous, Radhika dates a man named Ajay (Omi Vaidya). Nick starts to pick on Ajay, often calling him Vijay intentionally. After some reconsideration, Radhika forgives Nick, but Nick rejects her after she disapproves of Jerry. Meanwhile, Jerry graduates college and also wins Tanya's heart. Nick comes and apologizes to Jerry. All is forgiven when Nick and Jerry reconcile. Jerry then helps Radhika win back Nick.

Nick then helps Jerry get a high paying job, and Jerry decides to go to court and get back the custody of his nephew. Ajay turns out to be the lawyer against Jerry's case. He decides to get revenge on Nick by not letting Jerry win his case. Ajay tells the court about Jerry being a male escort and what a bad role model he would be to his nephew, bringing in 3 witnesses to testify against Jerry. He asks each of them if they had paid Jerry for sex, but only one says yes. Ajay is on the verge of winning, but Mr. Desi Boyz comes into the courtroom and influences the judge. Then, Jerry makes an inspiring speech to the judge. He ends up winning the case and gaining full custody of Veer. The economy improves and everyone is happy in the end. In a short ending scene, a newspaper article is shown, that states the recession will strike back, then Mr. Desi Boyz gives a call and says that he has gotten the license for a branch in Mumbai.

Cast

Inspiration

Desi Boyz was reported to be inspired by the aftermath of thousands of Indian students being duped by various universities in the West such as Tri Valley University, Herguan University, London Metropolitan University and University of Navarra.

Plagiarism

The basic plot and even some of the scenes of the movie has been lifted from various Adam Sandler movies like Reign Over Me, Billy Madison and Big Daddy.

Production

Desi Boyz started filming on 7 November 2010, and completed shooting in May 2011. The film was to feature Sonam Kapoor as the lead actress, but she declined the film. There were also rumours of the film being offered to Anushka Sharma, but she denied this. Eventually, Deepika Padukone and Chitrangada Singh were finalised as the female leads. This marks the collaboration of Kumar and Abraham after Garam Masala. Padukone will be seen opposite John Abraham for the first time and Singh will star opposite Akshay Kumar in her first commercial venture.

After short on extras for a scene at Oxford University, the film used website StarNow.com to recruit extras for filming. The first theatrical trailer was released on 23 September 2011, alongside Mausam, whilst the second trailer was released alongside Ra.One on 26 October 2011.

Release

Desi Boyz got an 'A' certificate from Central Board of Film Certification, although the makers were expecting a U/A certificate. The movie released in the United States on 23 November 2011 for the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend and released in India two days later on 25 November 2011.

Reception

Taran Adarsh gave the film 2 stars, owing to the "tedious and least compelling second hour". However, he praised the chemistry of the lead actors, commenting that "the camaraderie between Akshay and John is piping hot" Raja Sen of Rediff.com gave 1.5 stars calling it a disaster. Aniruddha Guha gave the film 2 stars, and called it "more than tolerable", despite recalling that "the film did make [him] laugh out loud about twice." Subhash K. Jha gave the film 3.5 out of 5 Stars calling "highly entertaining sex comedy movie having Smart, sassy, sexy and sparkling with dark audacious humour". film mainly received positive reviews from the Times of India gave a verdict of "Good". Indiaglitz gave it 4 stars. Glamsham gave it 3 stars. Sify gave it 3 stars as well. Komal Nahta also gave it  3 ¹⁄₂ stars.

Box office

Desi Boyz had an above average opening of Rs 275 million domestically in its opening weekend. It showed a 20% increase on Saturday, bringing the two-day total to Rs. 180 million net. The film grossed approximately INR 280 million by the end of the weekend and INR 380 million net by the end of its first week. It raked in Rs. 342.5 million in its second week taking the total to 460 million net, this was an above average gross for a film with such star power. On the whole, Desi Boyz netted a worldwide total to ₹77 crore (US$12 million).

Soundtrack

The film's songs are composed by Pritam Chakraborty and lyrics are penned by Irshad Kamil, Kumaar & Amitabh Bhattacharya. Bohemia raps to set the scene for Sanjay Dutt's cameo as he walks in the courtroom.

The film score is composed by Sandeep Shirodkar.

Reception

The music album of Desi Boyz received positive reviews. Joginder Tuteja of Bollywood Hungama gave the album 4 stars, saying "Music of Desi Boyz exceeds expectations" and described the album as "one of the better 'masala' albums of the year." Furthermore, he chose Subha Hone Na De, Allah Maaf Kare, Make Some Noise For The Desi Boyz and Jhak Maar Ke as favorite picks.

Glamsham gave the music a rating of 4 out of 5 saying, "Pritam builds up a good tempo in Make Some Noise For The Desi Boyz and carries the fun promisingly with Jhak Maar Ke and Tu Mera Hero with an all-together new breed and genre of music."

The official video of Subha Hone Na De has reached 99 million views on Youtube as of August 2017.