"If Wishes Were Horses" is a musical comedy featuring Guyana’s premier comedian Habeeb Khan as a farmer who prefers show business, but joins the National “Feed-Yourself" campaign. With original songs and theme music, and the dramatic and comedic skills of Khan, Mignon Lowe, Barney Johnson, Don Me Master, Lennox Greaves and director Vivian John Lee himself.
'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.