‘Phas Gaye Re Obama’, a satirically delicious comedy film directed by Subhash Kapoor, hit screens in 2010. The film garnered good reviews from critics and the audience too showered its love on the film amply. Eventually, the movie was declared a superhit.
The movie opened to lukewarm response on its first day, but in the following days, with the help of excellent word of mouth publicity, it tightened its grip at the ticket window and earned quite well. Made on a budget of Rs. 6 crores, the film went on to make insane profits for the makers by raking in a little over Rs. 19 crores at the domestic box-office in its lifetime run of three weeks. This was indeed a big feat for a small budget film which boasted of not so saleable stars like Rajat Kapoor, Neha Dhupia, Sanjay Mishra, Manu Rishi and Amole Gupte in the lead roles.
Besides it satirical comedy what worked in its favour was its catchy music and background score, which was composed by Manish. J. Tipu. Shellee and Gopal Tiwari penned the lyrics for the movie. Produced by Revel Films and distributed by Warner Bros Pictures, ‘Phas Gaye Re Obama’ is a favourite among the TV audience. The film has been aired on several TV channels several times since its release and it still manages to tickle the funny bones of the audience. After its blockbuster performance in Hindi, the film was remade in Telugu as ‘Shankaraabharanam’. Just like its Hindi version, the Telugu version of the film also garnered a lot of love from the audience and went on to earn massive profits for all the parties involved.
TRIVIA: The character of the politician played by Amol Gupte is drawn from D.P. Yadav and Shibu Soren and some of his actions remind one of Raja Bhaiyya.