"Hey, this was in 'The Matrick'?"
"You mean Matrix?"
"You mean Matrix?"
A Bollywood film set in modern day India. Starts off with a supersoldier named Ram foiling an assassination attempt on an Indian general by an anti-Pakistan terrorist. Ram's father is killed in the attack, but not before revealing that Ram has a long-lost half-brother named Lakshman who is still in college. The General then tasks Ram with protecting his daughter, who by coincidence attends the same college as Lakshman.
So Ram goes back to college, where he discovers that his brother, known to everyone as Lucky, is the Big Man on Campus who regularly leads the rest of the student body in cheerful Crowd Songs. Hilarity Ensues.
The resulting three-hour Cliché Storm is half-Die Hard, half-High School Musical, rolled into a Bollywood song-and-dance epic. Whether it was intentional or not, comes off as a brilliant parody of multiple Western genres. The sharp-eyed viewer will also note that the plot loosely follows the story of the Ramayana (as is lampshaded by the character names), which occupies a similar place in Asian cultures as Arthurian Legend does in the West. Well worth a hardcore Troper's time.
Main Hoon Na is Hindi for "I am here."
This film provides examples of:
- Almost Kiss: Happens many times, with sexy results.
- Bullet Time: In the most memorable example, Ram imitates a move from The Matrix not to dodge bullets, but a teacher's flying spittle. Other teachers lampshade this in the above quote.
- Destination Defenestration: Exaggerated in the opening, as every single window the main characters touch during the fight scene shatters, even one that Ram lightly puts his foot on once
- Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting: In India!
- Face Death with Dignity: When Raghavan realises he is about to die by his own grenade, he closes his eyes and lets the explosion engulf him.
- High School Rocks: Technically, they're supposed to be at a college, but otherwise fits this trope to a T.
- Hot for Teacher: After fawning over each other at length, Ram and his chemistry teacher, Miss Chandni, are very implied to have done it offscreen. Justified by Ram actually being older than her.
- Hypocritical Humor: Lucky initially mockingly refers to Ram as "uncle" for being older than everyone and especially because of his old fashioned fashion sense, ignoring the fact that because of his poor grades, he has been held back thrice, meaning he too is older than everyone else.
- Jerk Jock: Vivek. Although, unlike typical jerk jocks, he is less a bully and more a rival to Lucky and Percy. He is overshadowed in strength and atheleticism by Lucky (who nearly beats him in arm wrestling in the beginning, losing only due to Sanjana's interference and later easily defeats him) and Ram. Even his Jerkass tendencies are due to his girlfriend flirting with Lucky (who flirts back) and because Percy dances with her on prom night. Outside of that, he gets along well with the other characters (outside of making fun of Ram's age once). While in the beginning he nearly causes Lucky to fall to his death, that is also largely an accident and he even helps Ram save his life.
- Lampshade Hanging:
- Ram tells Raghavan that in stories, the bad guy always dies at the end, just before escaping by helicopter and Raghavan is blown up by his own grenade.
- Lucky entering the library for the first time is lampshaded by a particular traditional fanfare used in Bollywood movies to indicate a king entering into battle.
- Love Makes You Crazy: Ram, who is otherwise a stoic action hero, becomes a complete dork whenever Miss Chandni comes onscreen.
- Majorly Awesome: Major Ram is a borderline One-Man Army Super-Soldier.
- Meaningful Name: Ram and Lucky, whose real name is Lakshman, are loyal brothers in the Ramayana.
Word of God also adds that the villain's name, Raghavan, was the closest they could get to Ravan, who is the Big Bad of the Ramayana. - Mook Horror Show: In the climax, after faking his death, Ram subjects the terrorists guarding the hostages to this.
- The Oner: "Chale Jaise Hawayein" is mostly shot in one take, until the point when Lucky is introduced.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The forgetful principal accidentally blurts out that Lucky is a distant relative of Ram in front of Raghavan, who is posing as the replacement physics professor. All Raghavan needs to do is some digging and reveal the true identity of Ram to Lucky and Madhu, resulting in the Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure.
- He nearly blows Ram's cover in the climax again, but quickly manages to turn it into a calling out your captors-rage scream.
- Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: Ram is about to reveal who he really is to Lucky and Madhu... unfortunately for him, Raghavan has already reached their house first and spilled the beans. Lucky and Madhu throw Ram out on finding out he is the same illegitimate child of Shekhar, whose mere existence tore their family apart. As Ram is leaving, Madhu asks him one last time why he did what he did. Ram, at this point reveals that Shekhar is dead and he was just trying to fulfill his last wish: reunite his family. This ultimately causes them to have a change of heart in the climax.
- Punny Name: When Ram first sees Miss Chandni, he bursts into a song comparing her to moonlight. "Chandra" is the Hindi for "moon." The horrified students watching Lampshade this.
- Rearrange the Song: The scoring for this movie is equally trope-overdosed, with suspiciously-familiar sounding music. In particular, one track is uncannily reminiscent of the Mission: Impossible theme, and another is very similar to the Austin Powers theme.
- Redemption Equals Death: Once Khan realises Raghavan has a very biased vendetta and is thus, essentially a terrorist, not a patriot, waging a personal war, he helps Ram fake his death, allowing him to help the hostages escape. When Raghavan finds out, he is not pleased. Khan makes sure to drive the point home that he no longer supports Raghavan's cause as Raghavan shoots him.
- Sadist Teacher: Professor Rasai, with his spittle of death.
- Shout-Out: Half the movie is a series of these, from Sholay to The Ramayana. Occurs mostly in the action scenes.
- Shutting Up Now: Happens to Ram around Chandni, all the time. Usually preceded by a major Digging Yourself Deeper.
- Sibling Team: Lucky and Ram for the second half of the movie.
- Slow Motion: A major factor in this movie's 178-minute length, including drops and falls.
- Stealth Parody: Die-hard Hindi movie buffs will recognise most of the more Anvilicious lines of dialogue from classic movies.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Just for good measure during the climax.
