Memes & jokes on WhatsApp, Facebook etc. are really cool and the ‘virality’ of some of them is tough to escape in today’s day and age. At the same time, it gives you the license to make a movie out of them – NOT! That too the third part of a really successful franchise like Housefull – surely NOT!
Make no mistake that Housefull has always firmly belonged to the ‘leave your brains at home’ kind of comedy genre. But when the punches thrown during the fight sequences are the only punches in a comedy movie, it has clearly failed and failed miserably. One doesn’t expect intelligent humour (let alone, refined) in such a movie but then the basic brief of a comedy film has to be to make the larger audience laugh through most of the movie. Barring a few funny bits here and there, mainly thanks to Akshay Kumar, the jokes are flat, labored and wannabe.
Ganga, Jamuna & Saraswati (played by Jacqueline Fernandes, Lisa Haydon & Nargis Fakhri) are pretty daughters of Batuk Patel (Boman Irani), a stinking rich businessman in London.
Sounds familiar? I know.
Batuk has decided not to marry off his daughters as marriages have always led to disaster in the family. He has convinced them that he will die if the girls marry. However, the girls ‘just want to have fun’ as they prance around in short clothes dancing away to the Cyndi Lauper track and have really broke losers for boyfriends. The male leads Teddy, Sandy & Bunty played by Riteish Deshmukh, Akshay Kumar & Abhishek Bachchan are a wannabe race car driver, a wronged aspiring footballer and a wannabe rapper. Only Sunny actually has some talent relevant to his aspirations and is industrious which can be said about Akshay’s performance too, relative to the other leads. The girls use their genius minds and plot to present their beaus as blind, dumb and lame (just like most of the jokes in the movie). Chaos ensue, some funny moments happen, some twists and turns also happen, Jackie Shroff as disgruntled ex-top don happens (yeah! that too), losers doing soul searching happens and finally everything and everyone is reconciled.
Bad guys are punished. Good guys live happily ever after. This is awesome, right? Never mind the side splitting jokes on the following:
- African people in general and African maids who are bedded mistakenly by guys in the dark
- Different handicaps – yes, sigh!
- Hysterectomy – yes, really!
- Really ‘in’ stuff like – ‘Aadmi ko seedha hona chahiye, ooltah toh Tarak Mehta ka chashma bhi hai’
- Awesome literal translations of English phrases to exhibit Hindi waala sanskaar where limelight becomes nimbu ki roshni, let’s hang out becomes baahar latakte hain etc.
Of the starcast, it is only Akshay who comes across as really funny and carries the movies on his shoulders. Riteish delivers his parts efficiently but then this is really Deja Chu (the feeling of seeing the same ‘you know who’ again). Abhishek as a dumb (read as mute) wannabe rapper in the movie is probably the director giving us a hint. Is that giving the director too much credit? Oh yeah! Same guy, after all, who has dumbed down the women in the movie so much that they don’t even deserve a mention. They are hot, you say? Well, so are a lot of women. It is sad to see Boman Irani wasted in such a hopeless role where the jokes are so forced. It is equally sad to see a potential good role wasted on Jackie Shroff (good job on the weight loss, by the way) – remember Mithun in Housefull 2? Also, why would one waste the awesome Chunky Pandey in an almost cameo kind of role? That was your Aakhri Pasta Rasta.
The role of the director this movie is that of a compiler where jokes and situations have been stitched together with a formula. There are some really funny bits though – the split personality bits by Akki, the faux sad song sequence and the impromptu Pinga jig by Akki. Not to mention the unintentionally funny bits which were aplenty. It was really sweet on the director and producer’s part to have a scriptwriter on board. No work, good pay and credits too – that’s real corporate social responsibility. Oh wait! Isn’t there a guideline on x percentage of total revenue to be spent on this stuff. Now I get it. Cinematography & editing are strictly average. Production quality is good esp. with the exotic locales and the London tourism bit. Good deal, eh – wink wink, nudge nudge!
Final verdict – Housefull 3 might have houseful theatres but leave your thinking ability at home. Also leave behind your funny bone, sensibilities and ability to feel fatigue, to give your brain some good company. Come back and painfully reassemble all of this. Actually, why bother? Just watch Gunda or some other Mithun da movie. It’s much more fun!
Hindi, Comedy, Color