So this week, for the sake of this job, I went to watch a movie which I otherwise wouldn’t have watched even at gunpoint, Housefull 4. We’re all aware of the quality of films the franchise is known to produce so there were absolutely no expectations from my side with the film.
Evokes Many Emotions, Anger Being A Major One!
The film is all rhyme and no rhythm. It straddles two periods 600 years apart – 1419 and 2019 – and rests on a spectacularly infantile premise: an entire bunch of people in an ancient kingdom are reborn in the same place and time to take forward three love stories that were cut short by various factors. Let’s take a closer look as to what’s good and what’s not in our Housefull 4 Movie Review.
Housefull 4 Movie Review- The Plot
Harry (Akshay Kumar), Max (Bobby Deol) and Roy (Riteish Deshmukh) form the trio of mates who run a barbershop in London. The boys have lost a huge sum of money kept in their custody on behalf of an underworld don – the calamity is brought on by Harry’s forgetfulness. Desperate to find a way out of the grave trouble they are in, the three men woo the daughters of a tycoon – Kriti (Kriti Sanon), Neha (Kriti Kharbanda) and Pooja (Pooja Hegde). Their gameplan is to inherit the man’s wealth and get the mafia don off their backs once for all. The old man (Ranjeet), a brazen womanizer himself, agrees to accept the guys as their sons-in-law.
A destination wedding is planned and a khandaani gola – an atlas globe – is spun to choose the destination. And a globe, a globe mind you, pick a godforsaken village somewhere in India, Sitamgarh. The place is an ancient city, where the would-be life partners check into a heritage hotel managed by Winston Churchgate (Johnny Lever), a Mumbai man who has ended up here via London. Memories of the past come rushing back to Harry when he encounters the bellboy, Aakhri Pasta (Chunky Pandey). Soon Harry realises that the three pairs of today were also lovers some 600 years ago only this time the partners are crisscrossed. Their past love stories had a terrible ending. So Harry decides to correct what went wrong in the past.
Housefull 4 Movie Review- On The Upside
Giving credit where credit is due, Akshay Kumar’s performance might be their one saving grace of this debacle. Akshay is one of the most gifted comedic actors today and he proves his mettle again in Housefull 4.
There are some very few genuinely funny scenes in this otherwise crassly written film, and all of those scenes have Kumar in it showing the amount of heavy lifting done by Akshay alone in spite of having an ensemble cast.
Housefull 4 Movie Review- On The Downside
(Sigh) From where do I begin? The screenplay of Housefull 4 is so confusing that Da Vinci Code will seem simpler in comparison. The extravagant sets, which are heavily influenced by Game of Thrones, from King’s Landing to Dragonstone, appear to be a product of below-par CGI. The flamboyant costumes are worse. Bala is styled to look like a Bajirao-Esque Maratha king, and Rana Daggubati’s 1419 avatar, Gama is made to look like a hybrid between Khal Drogo, The Lord Of Bones and a Kaalkeya fighter.
Sexist and homophobic jokes and eternally unquotable dialogues (Isne apne gender ka tender nahin bhara) are aplenty. Just remember, you have the option of walking out of the theatre anytime! We even tried to look for the story, but that was nowhere to be found. Housefull 4 has plenty of songs you can groove to. None of them is particularly memorable, but we’re hoping the bad melody will drown under the deafening sound of firecrackers (green or otherwise).
Housefull 4 Movie Review- All In All
Your brain is capable of solving problems of logical reasoning in competitive exams. Don’t burn away your cells by watching this train wreck of a movie. You’re better than that. Sajid Khan was directing Housefull 4 initially but had to be removed after #MeToo allegations surfaced against him. Farhad Samji took the baton post that, took the film to completion. We’re going with 1 star out of 5, out of respect for Farhad Samji who had the most difficult task of all.
