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'.
