Munna Bhai M.B.B.S.: Difference between revisions

Murli Prasad Sharma ([[Sanjay Dutt]]), also known as [[Munna Bhai]], is a street-wise [[Bombay Hindi|Mumbai Hindi]]-speaking gangster, who runs an extortion racket on the streets of [[Mumbai]], and is supported by his loyal sidekick, Sarkeshwar ([[Arshad Warsi]]), also known as Circuit, who does most of his work for him. Every year, Munna's parents, Shri Hari Prasad ([[Sunil Dutt]]) and Parvati ([[Rohini Hattangadi]]), leave their home village and travel to Mumbai to visit their son, whom they are extremely proud of, for having apparently fulfilled their expectations and become a doctor running his own fully-functioning hospital named the "Shri Hari Prasad Sharma Charitable Hospital". Munna cannot bear to shatter his parents' dreams, and so whenever they come to visit him, he and Circuit set up this medical masquerade by having their building converted into a hospital, and all their henchmen take turns acting as doctors, patients and hospital staff. This works for many years, until one of the annual visits of Munna's parents culminates in Munna's father, while on a walk in a Mumbai park, bumping into an old accquaintance, Dr. J. C. Asthana ([[Boman Irani]]), who founded the first hospital in Munna's village years ago. Munna's father learns that Asthana's daughter, "Chinki" ([[Gracy Singh]]), is also a doctor and proposes to him to arrange her marriage with his son to which Asthana agrees.  

Munna, remembering that Asthana's daughter was his childhood friend, asks "Chinki" to reject him over a phone call, in an attempt to prevent his parents from discovering the truth. However, when his housemaid reacts shockingly to Munna's photograph, Asthana realises the truth, and exposes Munna's real occupation to his parents, and insults him for being ignorant of their son's life. Humiliated and aghast at their son's lack of a real vocation, Munna's parents cut their visit short and leave the city to return home to their village. Munna, in grief and despair, drunkenly decides that the only way to redeem himself and take revenge against the spiteful Asthana for insulting his father is to become a doctor in reality and obtain a medical degree of MBBS. The next day, Munna and Circuit arrive at the "Imperial Institute of Medical Studies", one of the most prestigious medical colleges in Mumbai, to make enquiries, when they learn from Dr. Rustom Pavri ([[Kurush Deboo]]), a faculty member of the institute, that Munna must write and pass an entrance examination with a mark above 90% to gain admission.  

Munna and Circuit repay Rustom for this helpful advice by holding his old, carrom-obsessed father as their hostage, and blackmailing Rustom into assuming Munna's identity, and writing and passing the entrance examination for him. However, Munna immediately creates chaos on his very first day at the institute; he frightens a doctor into treating Karan, a youngster having attempted suicide (the doctor had initially refused as Karan's mother had not filled out the necessary administrative forms); his class mistakes him for their professor; he moves into a hostel room and arranges Circuit to store all their personal furniture in it; he scares the senior students when they attempt to rag him; and on top of that, he discovers that the dean of the institute is none other than Asthana himself. Later on, though, the carefree Munna also develops a friendly relationship with Dr. Suman, another faculty member of the institute, who turns out to be Asthana's daughter. Unaware that Suman and his childhood friend "Chinki" are one and the same, an ignorance that Suman hilariously exploits to a point where he is bluffed into believing "Chinki" is not his type anymore, Munna decides to confess his feelings for Suman and abandon his personal feud against "Chinki" and Asthana.

As time progresses, Munna's antics make him popular with his students; he arranges Circuit to bring an extra dead body to the institute for dissection purposes (a concept which fails as Circuit kidnaps a Chinese tourist and Munna himself is unable to dissect the dead body); he meets Karan, the suicidal patient he had saved earlier, and cheers him up with a song; he effusively thanks an old, hitherto underappreciated janitor, Maqsood Bhai, cheering him up significantly; and he argues with a doctor for treating Anand Banerjee ([[Yatin Karyekar]]), a patient who has been brain-dead for the past 12 years, like a dead body, and takes Anand into his own personal care, attempting to treat him in his own empathetic and compassionate style. Although these antics slowly endear Suman to Munna, her father considers Munna a troublemaker and seeks to rusticate him. He sets up the most difficult examination in the history of the institute to prove Munna unqualified and get rid of him, which leads Munna to send Circuit to pay a visit to Rustom's father once again.

Although he has no medical skills, Munna transforms those around him with his "Jadoo Ki Jhappi" ("Magical Hug") – a method of comfort taught to Munna by his mother – and the compassion he shows towards those in need. Despite the institute's emphasis on mechanical, cartesian, impersonal and often bureaucratic relationships between doctors and patients, Munna constantly seeks to impose a more empathetic and almost holistic regimen around himself. He enforces the regime of "common-sense treatment" and uses old-fashioned kindness and love to "cure" many patients at the hospital, encouraging the patients themselves to make changes in their lives, so that they do not need medicines or surgery. Asthana - who perceives all this as symptoms of chaos - is unable to prevent it from expanding and gaining ground at his college. He begins laughing in a way that implies that he has gone extremely insane, as an attempt to practice "laughter therapy", which serves more to convey his anger than diffuse it. Later, Munna's meets one of Suman's patients, Zaheer Ali ([[Jimmy Sheirgill]]), a depressed young man, who has been diagnosed with stomach cancer. Munna arranges Circuit to bring a stripper inside the patient ward to entertain Zaheer, cheering him up significantly.

At the same time, Rustom's dying father is also admitted to the institute, where even his son is unable to save him, but Munna and Circuit are able to bring life back into him with the help of carrom, which earns him Rustom's respect and leads Zaheer to consider Munna an almost "divine" man. Meanwhile, Asthana tries several times to rusticate Munna but is often thwarted by Munna's wit or the affection with which the others at the institute, including, to some extent, Suman herself, regard Munna, having gained superior self-esteem by his methods. When Asthana learns about the stripper episode, he sees this as a potential reason to rusticate Munna on disciplinary grounds, but is unable to do so as Munna manages to stay on by throwing himself over a ledge and severely injuring himself, thereby confining himself to the institute's hospital. However, when Munna does recover, the hospital staff, patients and students stand in Asthana's way and refuse to let Munna leave, prompting Asthana to challenge Munna to take a test in front of him and the entire institute the next day to keep his enrollment, and everyone accepts the challenge.

Later that night, Munna is busy memorizing the answers for Asthana's questions, kindly provided by Rustom in gratitude for saving his father, when Suman brings the distressing news of Zaheer having collapsed to a worsening health and called for Munna. Zaheer believes that Munna will save his life, but unfortunately, he breathes his last in Munna's arms. The next morning, Munna begins answering all the questions well, but Asthana intervenes and announces he will ask all the forthcoming questions, shocking everyone. Munna, already shaken by Zaheer's death, is eventually unable to answer and is shamed into leaving the institute himself. He confesses the truth to everyone and breaks down about his guilt to Zaheer, his parents and everyone he cared for. Everyone except Asthana is moved to tears by his speech. In the moments immediately following Munna's departure, Anand miraculously awakens from his vegetative state, and Suman, at this point, realises Munna as the miracle behind Anand's recovery, and gives a heartfelt speech wherein she criticises her father for having banished Munna, pointing out that doing so is as good as banishing hope, compassion, love and happiness from the institute. Asthana eventually realises his folly.

That night, Munna and Circuit drown their sorrows in alcohol, but when they reach home, they are surprised to find Munna's parents waiting for them with open arms. Although Munna did not become a doctor, the news of his "miraculous" treatments reached his parents and they returned from their home village. Munna is then amused when Suman reveals to him that she is in fact "Chinki" herself, and falls into Munna's arms. In the end, Anand, restored to normal mental health, is about to leave for Kolkata and narrates to a few children at the hospital through a series of photographs what happened to all the characters; Munna and Suman got married and together opened a hospital in Munna's home village, where they implemented Munna's ideas daily, while Asthana is revealed to have picked up Munna's lingo there as the head doctor, who also implemented the fun-oriented methods used by Munna earlier. Meanwhile, Circuit also got married after a year and was blessed with a son nicknamed "Short Circuit". The medical institute, under Rustom's management since Asthana's retirement, also begun to imitate Munna's radical methods of treatment. Thus, in addition to the birth of Munna and Suman's offsprings, earned Munna the title of "M.B.B.S." ("Married With Bouncing Babies And Smiles") even though he was unsuccessful to become a doctor.