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 [[Organised crime in India|underworld]] 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 wish and become a doctor with a medical degree of MBBS. Munna cannot bear to shatter Hari and Parvati dreams, so whenever they come to visit him, he and Circuit set up a medical masquerade by having their building converted into a fully-functioning hospital named "Shri Hari Prasad Sharma Charitable Hospital", and all their henchmen take turns acting as doctors, patients and hospital staff. This works for many years, until one of Hari and Parvati's yearly visits unexpectedly culminates in Hari, 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 several years ago. Hari learns that Asthana's daughter, "Chinki" ([[Gracy Singh]]), is also a doctor and proposes him to arrange her marriage with his son to which Asthana readily agrees. Munna, remembering that "Chinki" was his childhood friend, asks her to reject him on a phone call in order to prevent his parents from realising the truth. However, when his housemaid reacts shockingly to Munna's photograph, Asthana discovers the truth and exposes Munna's real occupation to Hari and Parvati, insulting them and calling them "fools" for being ignorant of their son's life. Humiliated and heartbroken at their son's lack of a real vocation, Hari and Parvati cut their visit short and leave Mumbai to return home to their village.  

Munna, in grief and despair, drunkenly declares to Circuit that the only way to redeem himself and seek revenge against the spiteful Asthana for insulting his parents is to obtain an MBBS degree in reality. 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 a pre-medical entrance exam 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 exam for him. However, Munna immediately creates chaos on his very first day at the institute: he frightens a doctor into treating Karan (Vishal Thakkar), a youngster having attempted suicide, as the doctor had initially refused on grounds of Karan's mother having not filled out the necessary administrative forms; all the students in his class misunderstand him for their professor; he moves into a hostel room and arranges Circuit and their henchmen to store all their personal belongings in it; he frightens the senior students instead 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, "Chinki". However, Munna is unaware that Suman and his childhood friend, "Chinki", are one and the same, and Suman and Asthana hilariously exploit this ignorance. 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 unsucessfully kidnaps a Chinese tourist and Munna himself is unable to dissect another dead body); he meets Karan, the suicidal patient he had saved earlier, and cheers him up with a song; he effusively expresses gratitude to an old, hitherto underappreciated cleaner at the institute, cheering him up significantly; and he argues with a doctor for treating Anand Banerjee ([[Yatin Karyekar]]), a patient who has been in a brain-dead state since 12 years, like a dead body, and decides to take 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 exam 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, causing Rustom to help Munna pass the exam once again on a phone call.

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 emphasis of the institute on mechanical, cartesian, impersonal and often bureaucratic relationships between doctors and patients, Munna constantly seeks to impose a more empathetic and nearly holistic regimen around himself. He enforces the regime of "common-sense treatment" and uses old-fashioned love and kindness to "cure" many patients at the hospital, encouraging the patients to make changes in their lives themselves, so that they need no medicines or surgery to live. Asthana, who perceives all this as symptoms of chaos, is unable to prevent it from expanding and gaining ground at his institute. He begins laughing uncontrollably in a way that implies him to have gone extremely insane in an attempt to practice "laughter therapy", which serves more to convey his anger than to diffuse it. Meanwhile, Munna decides to meet with "Chinki" at a nightclub when Suman and Asthana send Suman's close friend, Shalini ([[Neha Dubey]]), to act as an attractive, seductive but foul-mannered "Chinki" in front of Munna and Circuit. Their plan works, and Munna is bluffed into believing that "Chinki" is not his type anymore, and thus decides to abandon his personal feud against "Chinki" and Asthana, but much to Asthana's chagrin, he announces that he has fallen in love with Suman.  

Later, Munna's meets one of Suman's patients, Zaheer Ali ([[Jimmy Sheirgill]]), a depressed young man who has been diagnosed with stomach cancer and does not have much time to live. Munna arranges Circuit to bring a stripper inside the patient ward in order to entertain Zaheer, cheering him up significantly, and Munna befriends Zaheer in the process. At the same time, Rustom's father suddenly loses his will to live due to old age and is also admitted to the institute's hospital, where his son is also unable to save him. However, Munna and Circuit are able to bring the will to live back into Rustom's dying father with the help of a game of carrom at the hospital, which helps Munna earn Rustom's respect and leads Zaheer to consider Munna a nearly "divine" man. Meanwhile, Asthana tries to rusticate Munna several times but is often thwarted by Munna's wit or the affection with which everyone 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 incident, 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. After Munna's complete recovery, Asthana tries to rusticate Munna with the help of police, but the hospital staff, patients and students stand in Asthana's way and refuse to let Munna leave. As a result, Asthana challenges Munna to give an oral exam in front of him and the entire institute the next day in order to keep his enrollment, and everyone accepts the challenge.

That night, Munna is busy practicing the answers for Asthana's questions, kindly provided by Rustom in gratitude for saving his father's life, when Suman brings the distressing news of Zaheer having collapsed to a worsening health and called for Munna. Zaheer pleads with Munna to save his life, but unfortunately, he dies in Munna's arms. The next morning, Munna initially begins answering all the questions well, but for being shaken by Zaheer's death, is ultimately unable to answer all the forthcoming questions. He confesses the truth about his cheating 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 the speech of Munna, who is shamed into leaving the institute himself. In the moments immediately after Munna's departure, Anand miraculously awakens from his vegetative state. Suman, at this point, realising Munna as the miracle behind Anand's recovery, gives a heartfelt speech wherein she criticises her father for banishing Munna, pointing out that doing so is as good as banishing love, hope, compassion, 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 Hari and Parvati waiting for them with open arms. Although Munna did not become a doctor, the news of his "miraculous" treatments reached his parents through "Chinki" and they returned from their home village. When Munna apologises to Hari for being unable to become a doctor, Hari states that doctors only save lives, but he is the one who "taught people to live". Hari and Parvati then instruct Munna to meet "Chinki". When he goes to meet "Chinki" atop the terrace, Munna is surprised on seeing Suman, who 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 and about to leave for [[Kolkata]], narrates what happened to all the characters to a few children at the hospital through a series of photographs. Munna and Suman get married and open a hospital together in Munna's home village, where they implement Munna's ideas daily, while Asthana is revealed to have picked up Munna's language there as the head doctor, who also implement the fun-oriented methods used by Munna earlier. Meanwhile, Circuit also gets married after a year and is blessed with a son, who is nicknamed "Short Circuit". The medical institute, under Rustom's management since Asthana's retirement, also begins to imitate Munna's radical methods of treatment. Thus, in addition to the birth of Munna and Suman's children, Munna earns the title of "MBBS" ("Married with Bouncing Babies and Smiles"), even though he was unsuccessful to become a doctor.