Jhootha Hi Sahi

Plot

Siddharth "Sid" (John Abraham) works in a bookstore in London named Kagaz Ke Phool with his Pakistani friend Omar (Raghu Ram). His girlfriend Krutika (Manasi Scott) never leaves a chance to dominate him. The twist comes when Sid starts getting calls from people who are attempting suicide as his number was mistakenly printed on fliers of an Indian suicide helpline and later on he takes on the counselling job.

One night he gets a call from Mishka (Pakhi Tyrewala) who had a bad relationship and is on the verge of taking her life. Sid and Mishka get talking and suicidal feelings are thrown over London's Tower Bridge. They become phone friends and Sid knows who Mishka is when she visits his bookstore. Unaware that Sid aka Fidato is the one who takes up her call and consoles her, she befriends Sid upon Fidato's advice. Then starts the meetings of Sid and Mishka where he impresses her by telling her all the things which she used to tell Fidato. But one fine day, Kabir (ex-boyfriend of Mishka) springs up from no where, and introduces his new girlfriend to Mishka, meanwhile Sid arrives and in their chat, he calls Kabir by his name. This makes Mishka wonder whether Sid and Fidato are same or not. This leads her to go to suicide helpline center and confirm whether Sid is Fidato or not and here she is misled. A neighbor of Mishka is attempting suicide and she calls Fidato immediately. Here she realizes that Fidato and Sid are the same. They get apart. Later on, on the London Bridge they finally end their differences and the film ends on a happy note.

Cast

Voice-overs:

Production

The film was originally titled 1-800-Love, later renamed as Call Me Dil and released under the title Jhootha Hi Sahi. The heroine of the film is Pakhi Tyrewala, wife of the director of this film Abbas Tyrewala. R. Madhavan and Nandana Sen make guest appearances in the movie while Imran Khan, Ritesh Deshmukh and Abhishek Bachchan lent their voices. The first look billboard poster of the film was unveiled by John Abraham, in a first of its kind on 12 August. The theatrical trailer was unveiled on 27 August 2010 and the music was released on 17 September 2010.

Release

The movie released on 22 October 2010. Earlier it planned to release on 4 July and 15 October, but was delayed since the re-recording of the background score by Rahman took more time than planned.

Music

The original score and songs of the film were composed by A. R. Rahman with lyrics penned by Abbas Tyrewala. He composed eight tracks for the film; however, a track by Shaan and Sunidhi Chauhan was not featured in the film or soundtrack album. There were rumours that KK and Adnan Sami have recorded songs for the album, but this did not happen. Rahman recorded some of the background score at his K. M. Musiq Studios in Los Angeles. Rahman wrote on a social networking website, "Recorded with a Los Angeles jazz quartet, a couple of whom have played with the likes of Barbra Streisand and Billie Holiday." A few of the songs were recorded in London, while the rest was recorded in Chennai. There were reports that the re-recording of the score took more time than planned and this led to the delayed release of the movie.

Controversy

Warner Bros. filed a case of copyright violation alleging that the movie was copied from their television series Friends. The producer of the film, Madhu Mantena, responded that it was not true and that the film had nothing to do with Friends; director Abbas Tyrewala has also denied the allegations.

Critical response

Jhootha Hi Sahi has received mixed critical responses. On the review-aggregation website ReviewGang, the film scored 5.0/10 based on 4 reviews. Nikhat Kazmi of The Times of India rated it 3.5/5: "The script has a few teasing twists and turns that do not let it fall into the rut of predictable run-of-the-mill romances". Aniruddha Guha of DNA rated it 2/4: "The film may have its moments, but not enough to leave you with a smile at the end. Not even recommended as a date movie". Sukanya Venkatraghavan of Filmfare wrote, Jhootha Hi Sahi is like an amateur college play where everyone is trying too hard and the writing is just plain cocky, with no depth or direction". Sukanya Verma of Rediff wrote, "John's the best, forget the rest". She gave a 2 out of 5 rating to the movie. Mathures Paul of The Statesman gave the film 2 out of 5 stars, noting, "It really doesn’t matter if Abraham lost a few stones to play Sid, if Pakhi is a good scriptwriter (though she looks like a middle-aged aunt with two left feet), AR Rahman is the music director and Abbas Tyrewala's last film was the modestly successful Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na. They all work in different directions".

Box office

The film opened to 50 – 60% occupancy in the first week. However, it managed to surpass other close releases from the next week onwards, reaching number one in the Indian box office and reaching number 20 in the United Kingdom box office on its opening weekend. By the end of its theatrical run, it had collected ₹ 156 million worldwide.