Habeeb Khan

John Agard

Mignon Lowe

Don McMasters

Lennox Greaves

Jan Cox

Juliana Da Silva

Vivian John Lee

Albert Bailey

Comedy

Music

If Wishes Were Horses

Ace Films International

Guyana

'If Wishes Were Horses' is a strange one. For a 1976 release out of Guyana, it is relatively impressive. However, judging it solely as a movie, it's not so good. The musical elements are actually quite good, even charming at points; the titular song is pleasant.

The humour is hit-and-miss, I did chuckle once or twice but that was mainly early on. The film is spearheaded by Habeeb Khan, a - so I read - famous comedian in the South American country. He is, in fairness, a solid lead. You can tell it's a vehicle of sorts for the comic.

The plot is a bit all over the place, the core premise is alright but regularly takes a back seat as Khan struts his stuff onscreen through comedy. The movie bizarrely takes a literal detour through 'The Three Musketeers' and 'Romeo & Juliet' for dream sequences. Somehow, it works (?).

However, any positives that this film has are short and sweet as they are surrounded by lethargic pacing. I kept losing interest, it would hook me back in partially before letting me go again. For a two hour movie, that's a big problem; it almost felt like a three hour flick, to be honest.

I may have enjoyed this if it had a tighter run time and was fully a musical, the deviations through the aforementioned works - as minorly amusing as they are - do make it feel bloated.

English

If Wishes Were Horses

Cast

Reviews