Housefull 3
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Riteish Deshmukh, Abhishek Bachchan, Jacqueline Fernandez, Lisa Haydon, Nargis Fakhri, Boman Irani, Jackie Shroff, Chunky Pandey
Director: Sajid-Farhad
Sometime in 2010, three masked men rob a museum in London. They have a face-off with the police and then we are taken to the present-day London. Batuk Patel (Boman Irani) hosts a party at his palatial mansion. When Patel’s friend puts forth a marriage proposal from his three sons to Patel’s three daughters Ganga (Jacqueline), Yamuna (Lisa) and Saraswati (Nargis), we realise the hitch. Batuk doesn’t want his daughters to get married.
Patel’s daughters Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati, however, are in love with Sandy (Akshay), Teddy (Riteish) and Bunty (Abhishek) respectively. To keep his daughters from marrying their boyfriends, Batuk gets Akhri Pasta (Chunky Pandey) to dress up as an astrologer. When Pasta pronounces death for Batuk the moment his sons-in-law step into the Batuk Mansion, the sisters come up with a plan.
Akshay Kumar slips into his role easily and the laughs in the film are mostly courtesy his comic timing. Riteish Deshmukh and Abhishek Bachchan do their bit, and along with Akshay, are the saving grace of Housefull 3. As for Jacqueline, Lisa and Nargis, they try to get into their characters, but that’s hardly anything to applaud them for. Boman Irani, Jackie Shroff, Chunky Pandey and the rest of the supporting cast hardly make an impact.
Sajid-Farhad’s Housefull 3 is entertaining only for its male leads. The story has nothing much to offer in terms of either substance or laughter. There are no rib-tickling moments in Housefull 3; but the actors do manage to get a few spurts of laughter.
The film demands willing suspension of belief, and that is understandable given the genre it belongs to, but Housefull 3 does not even check the ‘hilarious’ box.
The charm of Housefull 3, whatever little that is, lies in its mindless comedy. There’s sure some of that in the film, but that’s hardly enough to keep one hooked for more than a few minutes. And the film runs for 2 hours 15 minutes.
There are one-liners in the film which make your ears bleed. Housefull 3 tries to use ‘literal translation’ literally. So, ‘Once upon a time’ becomes ‘Ghadi ke upar’, ‘Comfortable’ is ‘Table ke liye’, ‘Hang out’ is ‘Baahar latakte hai’ and heaps of such inane jokes. For most part, Housefull 3 tries too hard to be funny, but doesn’t quite succeed.
There are no catchy songs either in the film. Girls Like To Have Fun and Taang Uthakey are barely passable in terms of hummability.
Housefull 3 is not exactly like its predecessors, even though the idea is more or less the same. Watch the film only for Akshay, Riteish and Abhishek’s comic timing.
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