Have Heropanti 2 makers loosely plagiarized scenes and mannerisms from a top Hollywood film?

Mumbai (Maharashtra): Bollywood has lowered its filmmaking standards in the past few days as filmmakers and actors bring out plotless movies and continue its irrationality with sequels and more. But what is more degrading than these absurd films is the way they blatantly copy Hollywood blockbusters with the hope of getting away with the subtle plagiarism. This has not only maligned Bollywood’s quality as a film industry but vilified the talent of many brilliant artists.

The upcoming movie ‘Heropanti 2’ is the sequel to Tiger Shroff’s debut film ‘Heropanti’. The original movie was poorly received not just by viewers but by critics as well who criticized the poor acting performances along with the bad screenplay and storyline. Such a reaction towards a movie showcases the poor filmmaking quality. But that did not stop the makers from creating Heropanti 2 along with Tiger Shroff, who already has fallen into the cycle of creating gibberish films and topping them with more absurd sequels, along with Tara Sutaria who has time and again has proved her poor film choices and Nawazuddin Siddiqui, a talented actor caught in a bad script.

The trailer of the film is only saved by Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s genius acting. But the makers have smeared that too with their excellent plagiarism. One of the trailers of the film introduces the villain, Laila, played by Siddiqui with a violent scene where he stabs a person to his death. But what strikes one while watching the scene is not its barbarity but its resemblance to a very famous scene from a megahit Hollywood release.

American movie The Dark Knight, based on the DC Comics superhero, Batman features the most favourite villain from the comic world, Joker. Played flawlessly by Heath Ledger, the 2008 movie features a similar scene where Joker stabs a person with a pencil on the pretext of magic. “How about a magic trick?”, Joker says before stabbing a pencil on the table. “I am gonna make this pencil disappear”, he says and smashes the head of an approaching bodyguard on the pencil. As the guard collapses on the floor with the pencil stuck in his head, Joker replies, “Tada! That’s gone”.

A similar scene plays in the Heropanti 2 trailer where Laila asks everyone sitting at the table about who would show them a magic trick if they killed him. He proceeds to bring out a knife and repeatedly stab a person on the chair next to him while repeating, “Magic!”. Even the character’s laugh is loosely based on the iconic laughter of Joker.

With many a time, makers getting caught for plagiarizing their content from famous movies, why is the copy-paste culture still so prevalent in Bollywood? These instances have not only devalued the films the industry makes, but also humiliated the industry that once shone brightly over the Indian film industry.