Hera Pheri (Translation|Foul Play) is a 1976 Hindi masala film directed by Prakash Mehra and starring Amitabh Bachchan, Saira Banu, Vinod Khanna, Sulakshana Pandit, Shreeram Lagoo and Asrani. The film's music is by Kalyanji–Anandji and the lyrics were by Anjaan, Indeevar.
Vinod Khanna received a Filmfare nomination for Best Supporting Actor. This is one of six films that Vinod Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan starred together in. At the time, the pairing of the two actors often made the film quite successful, especially since both actors were rising stars gunning for the top spot in Hindi Cinema. The movie was an inspiration for the 1978 Telugu movie Rama Krishnulu.
Plot
Vijay and Ajay are two small-time hustlers who've built a comfortable racket for themselves — conning corrupt men and crooks out of money that was already dirty to begin with. They're inseparable, more like brothers than friends, moving from one scam to the next: posing as holy men, working card tables, talking their way into and out of trouble with ease.
Their world starts to unravel when old family secrets surface. Vijay learns that the man responsible for his father's death may be tied directly to Ajay — possibly even Ajay's own father, long thought lost. That discovery poisons the friendship. The easy trust between them curdles into suspicion and anger, and the film pivots hard from breezy con-artist comedy into a much darker story of betrayal and revenge, dragging in a vengeful mother figure and a string of dangerous men from both their pasts. Saira Banu and Sulakshana Pandit play the women caught in the middle as love interests to the two leads, while a police commissioner circles the growing chaos.
Everything builds toward a final revelation that recontextualizes what came before — the kind of twist that makes you want to rewatch the first half with new eyes.