Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; August 31, 2019)

When Anees Bazmee approached Boney Kapoor with a story of three men and their sexual peccadilloes, which he had written and wanted to direct, the producer was game and they quickly decided that Anil Kapoor was apt for Kishan, the newspaper editor with a suspicious wife. “I had written films like Laadla and Deeewana Mastana featuring Anil, and knew he had great comic timing,” Anees reasons, saying they then approached Saif Ali Khan for the role of Shekhar, Kishan’s employee whom he treats like a younger brother. “Saif wanted to play Kishan but since Boney ji and I were convinced Anil was the best choice, we took Shekhar’s role to Fardeen.”

Salman Khan was Prem, though the director is quick to point out that his Prem unlike Sooraj Barjatya’s shareef, seedha family man, was a charming womaniser whose extra-marital affairs sparks off this comedy of errors and terrors. “Salman bhai had allotted only a day for the climax, but when I told him I needed three, he immediately agreed to stay back in Phuket,” Aneees reminisces. The climax was one of the film’s USPs, with the trio going over the edge of a cliff and hanging on to a tree for dear life, as a snake slithers by. “After we shot there, it became a popular tourist attraction and came to be known as the ‘No Entry Spot’ till the Tsunami washed it away.”

Anees surprises you with the revelation that after wrapping up the film, he had to wait for more than a year to release it. He had started writing his script with the title No Entry because, he reasoned, for a married man to court a woman other than his wife is like entering a ‘no entry’ zone. However, to his surprise, most members of his frat disliked it intensely and he was surprised by the almost violent reactions.

“People would snap, ‘Bakwaas hai’, and for a while I flirted with other, titles like Pati Patni Aur Woh, but eventually decided to stick to No Entry,” narrates the writer-director, who was later rewarded when it heard the audience raving, “Bahut achcha title hai”, encouraging him to experiment with Welcome, Ready and Singh Is Kinng.

But before that Anees almost despaired of his film seeing the light of the day. In fact, two days before the its release on August 26, 2005, he was suddenly told that it had been pushed again. “We finally opened without any advance booking and when I heard that there were very few people outside Chandan theeatre in Juhu, I resigned myself to the fact that two years of hard work had gone down the drain and went to sleep. I was woken up by the same well-wishers calling me a few hours later to say that the film was playing to a full house. In fact, business was better in the second week, with blackmarketeers doing brisk business. Even 14 years later, No Entry hasn’t gone into vanwas,” he exults.

Interestingly, despite its risqué subject and an escort, Bobby, at the centre of the plot, the film is seen as a family entertainer. Anees however reveals, tongue-in-cheek, that he knows of many husbands who have managed to distract their better halves from seeing the entire film, afraid that “unki sab pol khul jayegi”.

Prod him on Bipasha Basu’s Bobby who drives the men crazy when she enters the “Ishq Di Galli” and Anees informs that when the actress heard that this song was to be filmed on her, she begged him for 15-20 days to shed the weight she had put on during a holiday in the US. She turned up a fortnight later, looking gorgeous and her sexy moves still makes pulses race.

“Boney ji had wanted to shoot the song on a lavishly-mounted set in Mumbai, had allotted a Rs 3 crore budget only for it. Anu Malik (composer), Sameer (lyricist) and I had cracked while on our way to Lonavala. It was so catchy I immediately knew we had a chartbuster,” reminisces Anees. They eventually shot it in a real club in Bangkok, located opposite their hotel. Raju Sundaram who choreographed mostly for films down South, was cajoled into directing it and Anu’s opening beat became No Entry’s signature tune, used in the background at significant points in the narrative.

In the years since, talk of a sequel has come up several times. Anees admits that two years ago, he locked a story which can take the franchise forward. “We juggled five stories before settling on this one which took six months to finish. Now, I am waiting for Salman bhai and Boney ji to greenlight the project. Bahut khusboorat picture banegi,” he promises.