Movie: Housefull 4
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Riteish Deshmukh, Bobby Deol, Kriti Sanon, Kriti Kharbanda, Pooja Hegde, Manoj Pahwa, Rana Daggubati, Johnny Lever, Chunky Panday, Ranjit,
Director: Farhad Samji
Ratings: 3.5 stars
With every sequel of Housefull, the excitement and anticipation around the movie only increases from time to time. It all started in 2010 with the first part ‘Housefull’ and it was defined as ‘Two & A Half Hours Of Mindless Comedy’. Well, even after 3 editions, things haven’t seemed to change much. The only changes that seemed to have happened are in the narrative and the star cast. Here’s venturing more into how Housefull 4 came off.
Set in the period of 1419 to begin with, Housefull 4 happens to be a reincarnation comedy and it’s definitely a genre within a genre. Rajkumar Bala, aka Akshay Kumar, plays the role of the historic torturous devil, who is intolerant to any kind of fun poked at him. He’s named ‘Bala’, because ever since his first ‘mundan’, he never grew hair again, and hence anybody poking fun at his baldness faces his wrath and their hair is chopped off right in the whisker of a second. His greed and lust for his father’s throne apparently ends up with him getting thrown out of his father’s kingdom. He gets accompanied by his ever-so-loyal ‘naukar’, aka ‘Aakhri Pasta’ (Chunky Panday), who’s without any doubt the lifeline of the Housefull franchise.
As Bala decides to avenge the ouster and settle dues with his father, he discovers a wonderful way out to actually do it and get the riches of a ‘throne’ once again. That happens to be marrying the eldest daughter of the royal family of Sitamgarh, Madhu (Kriti Sanon). Alongside Madhu are also getting married her two sisters, namely Mala and Meena. Bala discovers that he doesn’t have any riches to offer to the Maharaja of Sitamgarh to get himself married off to his daughter Madhu. Hence, Bala uses all of his ‘Shaitaani khopdi’ and makes a plan in coordination with Dharam Putra (Bobby Deol obviously, because only he is the ‘puttar’ of Dharmendra) and Bangdu Maharaj (Riteish Deshmukh). Although initially hesitant, the duo ends up falling into Bala’s plan for their personal vested love interests in the other 2 ‘Rajkumaris’, Mala and Meena. Finally, after all the hustle and struggle, when it looks like a happy ending to a romantic tale is on its way, things begin to fall apart due to internal conspiracy from Suryabhan (Sharad Kelkar), who too wants the throne. Hence, in order to stop the marriages, he conspires to get them killed by killing the brother of the royal family’s enemy kingdom and its leader, Raja Gama (Rana Daggubati).
In order to seek revenge for his brother’s death, Gama, who has the misconception that it’s Bala who’s responsible for his brother’s death, decides to barge into the kingdom and destroy everything. And he manages to do that quite efficiently, thereby resulting in the 3 love stories having an unfortunate end, with all of them dying in 1419.
600 years later, Harry, aka Akshay Kumar, Roy, aka Riteish Deshmukh, and Max, aka Bobby Deol, are all together after reincarnation in different lives and different roles. And alongside them, the leading girls, the likes of Kriti, aka Kriti Sanon, Pooja, aka Pooja Hegde, and Kriti Kharbanda, aka Neha, also have a rebirth, and the 6 of them are dating each other once again in 2019. But there’s an issue.
The couples have interchanged in their reincarnation birth and the first one to realize the same is none other than Harry, who starts understanding and realizing about the reincarnation of all 6 of them when they all end up having ‘Sitamgarh’ as their marriage destination, all thanks to the ‘Khandaani globe’ of the three sisters. The narrative then unfolds into how Akshay Kumar, and eventually all the three men manage to remind the girls of their reincarnation with the help of Aakhri Pasta and his unattained love ‘Giggly’ (Johnny Lever), so that they eventually don’t end up marrying each other’s ‘bhabhis’ in 2019 and also how they protect their girls this time from the evil clutches and intentions of Michael bhai (modern day Suryabhan) and Pappu Rangeela (modern-day Gama), since obviously, to continue with the narrative and the flow, everyone needed a second birth. As to how they end up doing that and get married to their ‘600 saal pehele ka pyaar’ is something you can discover after watching.
IWMBuzz Verdict: Housefull 4, in one line, is 140 minutes of ‘mindless yet entertaining drama’. When it comes to these kinds of comedies, you cannot simply expect logic and practicality to integrate, as that’s a spoiler in itself. However, Akshay Kumar, Bobby Deol, Riteish Deshmukh, Chunky Panday and the entire cast must be given full credit for keeping the audience hooked onto the screen. Even if there are some really silly, stupid and overboard sexist jokes, which is a bit of a turn off in itself, you wouldn’t really be surprised, as after all, it comes from the Housefull franchise. Akshay, Riteish, Kriti, Pooja, Kriti Kharbanda, Bobby Deol and cast give their best to make you laugh, giggle and chuckle, but the ‘star’ performance among the stars comes from none other than Johnny Lever, who’s absolutely magnificent when it comes to essaying Chunky’s ‘punar janam ki lost love’, Giggly. Be it his voice modulations to his astonishingly eccentric comic timing, he’s truly the best part of the whole movie. Nawazuddin Siddique as Ramsay Baba is a character that looks forcefully plunged into the screenplay, as it does not have any impact or long-lasting value to the whole film. Overall, it’s an ideal Diwali entertainer if you are just willing to sit in the cinemas for a 140-minute run of sheer entertainment, craziness, and madness. However, don’t go inside expecting ‘realism’ or else you will be disappointed.
3.5/5 stars
