Housefull

Given that this movie is made by one of the worst directors (Sajid Khan), I wasn't expecting much. It did make me laugh in parts (mainly because of Akshay Kumar's comic flair) but 'Housefull' is pretty much full of crap. A jinxed Aarav, or whatever his name is (Akshay Kumar), tries to find happiness but everywhere he goes, things fall apart. He finally lands on the bed of Bob (Ritesh Deshmukh)and Bobba (Lara Dutta). They arrange for him to get married to their boss's daughter Jiah (Jiah Khan). However, on their wedding night, Jiah cheats on Aarav. A heartbroken Aarav attempts suicide in the Mediterranean but he is rescued by an airhead (Peepika Padukone). What follows is more garbage as the plot changes from one thing to another. This is hardly any different from the usual trash Bollywood has been churning lately, in the name of comedy. A lot of money has been wasted on it as 'Housefull' has been expensively shot in Italy and England. The sets are lavish and grand. The soundtrack is dreadful. Of the performances, Akshay Kumar manages to be funny again but his choice of awful movies is becoming routine. Arjun Rampal is the other actor who delivers a solid performance. Of course, it needs to be mentioned that 'Housefull' rips off several Hollywood films which I won't even bother listing.

Sajid Khan sounded very confident in his interviews before the release of "Housefull". He even went on to predict the success of his second project which eventually raised the expectations level of the viewers to a great extent. And with the IPL season coming to an end, the movie was projected to be the first biggie to finish off the lean period. But unfortunately the final product presented before the audience does not fulfill all the promises made by its makers completely. It's a mixed bag of comic moments blended with some emotional stuff which entertains only in bits and parts and ends up in a terrible manner.

In short, "Housefull" fails to come out as a thorough entertainer and lacks the required pace which is a must for a hilarious laugh riot. It starts off very calmly and goes on with its storyline about a loser, in a very lethargic style. Surprisingly, I found the energy levels very low in the movie, particularly in the first half, which is not normally the characteristic of a Sajid Khan project. Sajid has always been fast, witty and highly energetic in all his previous ventures, be it a movie or a serial. But in "Housefull", his famous style of humor is visible only in parts and that too more in its second half.

The film can be divided into two different parts as far as its story plot is concerned. The first half deals with the story of Akshay getting married to Jiah Khan, facing an immediate shock after the first night and then meeting Deepika Padukone as her next love. Along with that there is another angle of a married couple, Ritesh Deshmukh & Lara Dutta, living in London against the will of Lara's father, played by Boman Irani. This part purely deals with the love story of these two couples and their related problems.

Post interval, the script moves on to the same seen before plot of "Mistaken Identities" which was also used in the last year Hit comedy "All The Best". Here both the couples are expecting one senior person from their families, coming to visit them in London. At their simultaneous arrival, they wrongly identify the characters living together, which leads to further confusions and chaos. Thankfully, the movie picks up post intermission and you get to see some good funny sequences which entertain. But again the climax comes as a big let-down, written around a silly thought of laughing gas, which miserably fails to generate any laughter and ends the movie on a terrible note. I really wonder how the director Sajid Khan, who is known for his wide collection of Home Videos couldn't think of any other climax for his big movie.

In a few words "Housefull" is not able to hold the viewer consistently. It's a kind of bumpy ride, which becomes slow at times, then picks up a little and again goes back to its snail pace at regular intervals. Though it has some good moments to enjoy mainly in its second half, but still they are not enough in numbers to provide a satisfactory result to the viewers. In short the movie only reaches half the mark with its routine emotional plot and uneven funny sequences.

On the performance front, Akshay Kumar doesn't play it loud this time and acts his part calmly. But I really missed his famous cunning smile in the comic scenes. Ritesh displays his comedy skills like a child act. In fact he can now easily be called as a master of comedies. Arjun Rampal impresses as the tough man. Out of the three girls, Deepika scores the most with her new found confidence and her stunning revealing water act in the beach song. She even excels in her emotional scenes this time, which shows that she is working on her skills. Lara looks gorgeous and like Ritesh, she is also fast becoming a pro for comedies. Jiah Khan gets less scope in the script, but looks great and sizzles in her few scenes in the movie. Boman Irani is perfect in the role of Gujrati father and Randhir Kapoor is fine as a London Casino owner. Lilette Dubey does a routine seductive act whereas Malaika Arora is just wasted.

Amusingly, out of its entire star-cast the most entertaining cameo comes from Chunky Pandey as an Italian Hotel owner. I seriously found his few scenes in the first half as the most refreshing and funny moments of the entire movie. And I wish he was given more footage along with Akshay in the later part too.

From melody point of view "Housefull" has a fairly good soundtrack with few melodious songs shot well in the exotic foreign locations. But the remix track "Apni To Jaise Taise" lacks the solid punch which still sounds more impactful in its original. Another unimpressive and strange aspect of the movie is its Background Score, which I found very slow and unenergetic which literally did not match the movements on the screen. On the other hand, its cinematography is simply outstanding capturing the outdoors and the beaches in a mesmerizing style. On a funny note, the 3 beauties and their bodies flowing in the waters can also be well used for Sajid Khan's production's next new-year calendar.

Lastly, I would only like to say that "Housefull" will no doubt reap the benefits of being the first big movie released after the IPL season. But as a complete entertainer it doesn't live up to the expectations. With a sloppy script and sluggish pace it leaves you largely unsatisfied.

From the days of 'Ikke Pe Ikka' to 'Heyy Baby', Sajid Khan has portrayed himself and his ideas as nothing but slapstick. Drawing enormous criticism for the stupidity that was 'Heyy Baby', he seems to have come to his best.... which doesn't put him on any sort of pedestal but certainly gives you fair returns for your ticket price. While paying tribute to film makers of yesteryears, Sajid Khan introduces us to his latest concoction of slapstick silly comedy - 'Housefull'.

Arush (Akshay Kumar) is such a loser..... smitten with bad luck, his remorse takes him to his childhood buddy, Bob (Ritesh Deshmukh) in London. The attempted comedy in this part, with Hetal (Lara Dutta) falling out of the window, the super powered Vaccuum cleaner and Prada leave you worried about the rest of the film. In the hope of eliminating his bad luck spree, Arush gets married to Devika (Jiah Khan), the daughter of millionaire Casino baron Samtani (Randhir Kapoor) but all is not well after they arrive in an Italian holiday resort. Chunky Pandey at this point provides some refreshing comedy, far better than any he has attempted. Arush meets Sandy (Deepika Padukone), they meet Bob & Hetal, they all meet Hetal's Pappa (Boman Irani) and they in turn meet Sandy's Anna Krishna Rao (Arjun Rampal) and in the end, they all meet the Queen of England.

The bits with Chunky Pandey and Boman Irani are indeed funny but out of the lead actors, Ritesh Deshmukh gets much of the fun dialogues and scenes whereas Akshay Kumar has to cope with being the loser who is put in impossible circumstances. Deepika was anyways only good at smiling so she gets to do that a lot here, Lara Dutta has given her best especially with the Gujrati dialogues while Jiah Khan remained skimpy at best. Chunky Pandey was very passable, given some funny dialogues and situations whereas Boman Irani rose to yet another challenge of being a part of this madness and yet standing out with such a convincingly funny character. Not only does he display his versatility but he rises above all with his spontaneity and hilarious expressions. Watch out for his remarkable thumkas while sleep-walking during a song.

Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy may seem over-qualified for this film but their rocking remake of 'Apni toh Jaise Taise' (It's Jhakaas!) and 'O Girl you're mine' with some hilarious lyrics by Amitabh Bhattacharya in 'He's such a loser' and 'Papa jag jaayega' make this a fun soundtrack.

Sajid Khan has by no means done anything revolutionary here. Pretty sure he didn't intend to either. 'Housefull' falls in the category of 'Welcome', 'Dhamaal', 'Partner' etc and not among the all time greats. Thus, you get a silly but crazy entertainer which thankfully in many parts is howlarious with some really funny one-liners. But then you also have inane slapstick with a vaccuum cleaner, tiger, monkey and laughing gas to no effect. These days, such scenes are just embarrassing to watch.....

Yes, be sure to leave your brain at home as they say and only then will you be able to enjoy this movie to an extent. After a dry spell that consisted only of live IPL matches in theaters, this is a comedy we need before some serious stuff that is lined up for the next 2 months. Don't spend more than Rs. 150 and you will agree that it was at least 'Paisa vasool'.

• 6.99 on a scale of 1-10.

One can't help but feel pity for all the money and resources that has gone down the drain to shape up this awful film. The entire crew & cast enjoyed a royal holiday overseas under the garb of production costs. The director cleverly puts a disclaimer at the very start of the movie that "Housefull" is a tribute to the directors of 70's & 80's hinting the staleness of the product.

The saving grace of the movie is the music. SEL have backed up the product with foot tapping numbers. Background score by Sandeep Chowta is okay'ish. The comedy sequences are completely out of place. And the climax scene which everybody panned - its a straight lift from Charlie Chaplin's "Laughing Gas" only Sajid Khan raped it.

Performances::

Akshay Kumar:: In a desperate attempt to deliver a hit, his performance is sinking faster than titanic.

Ritesh Deshmukh:: Consistent as ever. Did not have much comedy sequences where he could deliver and showcase his talents.

Arjun Rampal:: No good in comedy and his characterisation was awful especially his polygraph machine.

Lara:: Miscast opposite Ritesh.

Jiah Khan:: The Jekyll and Hyde was badly written.

Deepika:: Only beautiful looks.

Chunky Pande: Was irritating in his Aakhree Raasta character.

Boman Irani, Lilette Dubey & Randhir Kapoor:: Wasted

If making a slapstick comedy was the intent then Sajid Khan should learn a lot of things from Hollywood. There exists a genre of slapstick & no brainers delivers complete wholesome entertainment. "Housefull" is a by- product of success-gone-over-the-head when a garbage like "Hey Baby" becomes a hit and the director goes on to make yet another bigger garbage. Nadiadwala & Eros, are you listening?

After having watched all the video blogs and so forth on Bollywood Hungama, I was really looking forward to this one. But what a major disappointment. I don't think they were able to carry a common thread of a plot throughout the movie and only parts of it were funny. And those funny parts were so reminiscent of this other Bollywood film. What was the name.... it had Anil Kapoor, Fardeen Khan, and Salman Khan.

I was also SHOCKED to see a 4-star rating on Bollywood Hungama. Definitely won't put any faith in to Taran Adarsh's reviews from here on out. Just because the movie heavily advertised and promoted via the site, they inflated the ratings. Complete BS. That made it all the more disappointing to watch.