Written by: Vibha Singh & Milap Zaveri
Directed by: Sajid Khan
Starring: Akshay Kumar, Ritesh Deshmukh, Lara Dutta, Randhir Kapoor, Jiah Khan, Deepika Padukone, Arjun Ramphal, Boman Irani
House Full is directed by Sajid Khan, coming back after 2007’s successful Heyy Babyy. So now we have almost the entire team (actors, producer, writer and director) of the previous film back with this one. Going by the trailers and “tall claims” of its director, it is a full-on comedy, urging the audience to leave “their brain behind” and watch the movie. Now, one expects that from almost all David Dhawan movies and one can be totally assured that its going to be a laugh riot! But this…well, there are simply no words to describe it. Beyond these: “What trash!”
The story is about a loser, Arush (Akshay Kumar), who is a cooler at a casino (thanks to the bad luck he brings along). He ends up quitting his job after getting dumped by his girlfriend and then travels to London to meet to his best friend Bob (Ritesh Deshmukh). Bob is happily married to Heetal (Lara Dutta), who has run away from India after marriage. Both of them work in a casino owned by Kishore (Randhir Kapoor). Kishore wants to marry his daughter Devika (Jiah Khan) off to an Indian and Bob convinces them that Arush is the best bet and yes, they are married and are off to their honeymoon. There Arush learns she is in love with someone else and married him due to pressure from her father to marry an Indian…else she would not got a single penny from his billion dollar property.
[ad#longpost]Arush then tries to commit suicide only to be saved by Sandy (Deepika Padukone) and they fall for each other. Now then, they are back to London and then we have Major Krishna Rao (Arjun Ramphal) and Papa (Boman Irani), Deepika’s brother and Lara’s father. who plan to visit them at the same time to meet the Arush and Bob respectively. There is total chaos and a series of misunderstandings on their arrival which results in all of them living under one roof with mistaken identities. How the issue of mistaken identities is resolved and at what cost forms the main portion of the movie.
First, the good part: the acting. Akshay Kumar plays his role well. His comic timing is excellent and he manages to extract out the few laughs that the script provides. Ritesh again as the hero’s sidekick is apt and this must be like brushing his teeth for him–he’s played this role a thousand times now. The three leading ladies–Deepika Padukone, Lara Dutta and Jiah Khan–have nothing much to do other than dance around in the skimpiest clothes possible, have a smiling face and mouth a few romantic dialogues. And Jiah Khan can’t do that either! She just can’t act. Arjun as the CBI cop is passable. Boman Irani as the sleepwalking dad does what’s expected of him: appear as foolish and thusly do things as foolishly as possible…which he does pretty well. Chunky Pandey has a small role and ensures he does well in that limited timeframe. Randhir Kapoor is, however, wasted. All of them involved (Akshay, Ritesh, Boman Irani, Chunkey Pandey) have played similar roles several times and could have sleepwalked through their roles and still done it as good as they’ve done it in here! Admittedly, the songs are good, the music is pleasing. “O Girl” and “Volume Kaam Kar” stand out. The numbers are peppy and enjoyable.
However, next comes the crap part…which is almost everything else. This no-brainer story does not have much to write home about. Things slow down in a big way in the second half and the movie drags on endlessly and painfully towards the most obvious climax one can possibly think of! Sajid Khan, who has hosted some off the best comedy shows on TV, is nothing but a total letdown as a director. He showed his brilliance in handling comedy in a few scenes in Heyy Babyy (another trashy offering, an inspired version of Three Men and a Baby) and does the same here: there’s a few scenes well done, which evoke laughter. But one cannot justify making movies for just a few good scenes! Scripts like this simply cannot work, because here the script doesn’t deliver. So much so that I am wondering what actors like Akshay, Ritesh, Deepika, lara and Arjun saw in a script like this before signing on the dotted line? Sajid should stick to his TV shows and stop directing movies. But…unfortunately, thanks to the big star cast he got in, this movie (just like his previous outing Heyy Babyy) no doubt made enough money to increase the producer’s confidence in him…so we can surely expect another one coming from this team.
Overall, one of the most disappointing films I’ve seen in recent memory. If you want to watch it for a few laughs, do yourself a favour: watch Akshay Kumar starrer Phir Hera Pheri again instead–a repeated viewing of that would invoke more laughter than this does. As Chunkey Pandey’s character in the movie would have put it: “It’s the best movie in years, there cannot be a movie as hilarious as this, it’s a masterpiece.” And then after a pause, “Obviously, I am joking…it’s the opposite!” Total Trash.
