Too many actors spoil ‘Housefull 2’

“Housefull2” lived up to my expectations – of being a despicable film that boasts of garish performances, a mediocre, yet confusing script, and some seriously inane lines, peppered with humdrum Bollywood disco songs and twists.

It’s the tale of how two greedy brothers, who try to rope in UK’s (“Uttarakand?”) Richie Rich, aka Jolly, for their gorgeous girls, gets entangled in a chaotic case of mistaken identity. While Jolly tries to use the circumstances to help out his friend Jai and in turn play out his own romance with ladylove JLo. And, cashing in on this situation is best friends-turned-enemies Max and Sunny.

It’s a classic example of how too many actors can spoil a movie.

And, that’s exactly what happens when a director huddles every known actor pal, acquaintance, girlfriend, family friend, uncles, aunts, and even pets into one film.

The audacious trailers were a clear indicator, but there was a slim chance that even star kids, who’ve turned directors overnight due to their family clout, might spring a surprise and silence finicky critics, like me. Alas, that’s still far from being true.

So, “Housefull2”, which is supposedly a sequel to Sajid’s “Housefull” has absolutely no relation, barring the name, with the first movie. Then, it’s not a sequel, right? But, no one really cares. Either you think Sajid is incapable of deriving an explanation for such an absurdity, or you are just indifferent to it.

 But that’s the least of the problems with “Housefull2”.

It glorifies nothing but buffoonery, forcing us to baulk at how Sajid could reduce stalwart performers like Rishi and Randhir Kapoor into an infuriating set of warring brothers, mimicking their real life woes by using their nicknames Chintu and Dabboo. They’re left to display their screechy, whimsical personalities without a breather, leaving us rather exhausted.

Of the senior actors, it’s Mithun Chakraborty (JD/Jagga Daaku) and Boman Irani (Batook Patel), who get away slightly unharmed, but a silly tiff over a pouty item girl Anarkali (Malaika Arora-Khan) does damage their reputation immeasurably. Even, the infamous, lecherous Ranjeet gets to play a “the-rapist”, but the jokes on him are far from funny.

The ladies – Asin (Heena), Jacqueline Fernandez (Bobby), Zarine Khan (JLo) and Shahzhn Padamsee (Parul) – don’t have much to do but parade their well-toned bodies and pretty faces, which they do, in abundance, but they lack the charm of their Btown contemporaries, making this bunch very lackluster.

The men – Akshay Kumar (Sunny), John Abraham (Max), Riteish Deshmukh (Jolly/Jalwa), Shreyas Talpade (Jai) – prance, claw, run, jump, hide, kick and do innumerable acrobatic stunts to keep their characters alive and us, exasperated. Shreyas and Riteish appear more genuine and far more talented that their beefy counterparts, who resort to trivial gimmicks and pretty pouts to stay afloat.

Chunky Pandey (Aakhri Pasta) and Johnny Lever (JD’s sidekick) are appalling and deserve a tight spanking. Their exclusion would’ve made this journey a little bit more tolerable.

Writers Sajid (not Khan) and Farhad pen lines in rhymes, which is endearing at the beginning, but turn infuriatingly painful over the 2 hour-48 minute ordeal.

“Jolly meet Dolly, let’s play Holi!” and “Why don’t you choose C, because long time no see”, being just a few examples of the countless, inane play of words.

The story is hackneyed, and fails to tickle us anymore. Surely Sajid should’ve known better than to allow best bud/producer Sajid Nadiawala to write the story, and rope in not one, but three others – Tushar Hiranandani, Farhad and Sajid (not Khan) – to help him with the screenplay, leaving the script utterly cluttered.

The movie is also guilty of lifting funny scenes from Hollywood flick. The tennis scene between John and Randhir is a straight copy from the 1999 Sharon Stone-starrer “The Muse”.

Just when we started believing, after watching movies like “Kahaani”, that Bollywood had upstaged its reputation of making sensible cinema, there comes movies like these that take you back to the stone ages.

Now, it’d be unfair to expect so much from a director, who has to his credit a Hollywood lift-off of “Three Men and a Baby” titled “Heyy Babyy”, another deplorable comedy “Housefull” and a short part in “Darna Zaroori Hai”, but if he’s going about town proclaiming he’s got the talent, then the least he can do is prove that assertion.

So, if nothing else, I’m quite sure this movie won’t play “House Full” in the cinemas.

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