The first two films in the ‘Housefull’ series were lapped up by the audience and made enough money for the makers to roll out a third part. While Sajid Khan directed the first two films in the franchise, Sajid–Farhad, who served as the writers for the second part and have earlier directed the Akshay Kumar – Tamannaah starrer ‘Entertainment’, have helmed ‘Housefull 3’. The Housefull films revolve around a house full of people landing themselves in situations which leads to several comical moments. One expects the third part to work around this theme with a fresh new storyline.
Batook Patel (Boman Irani) is a rich London based businessman who lives with his three daughters Ganga (Jacqueline Fernandez), Jamuna (Lisa Haydon) and Saraswati (Nargis Fakhri). For some reason, Patel does not want his daughters to get married. The girls, though, have a boyfriend each and decide to confess this to their father. Batook asks Aakhri Pasta (Chunky Pandey) to make some false predictions which would make his daughters change their mind. The three men Sandy (Akshay Kumar), Teddy (Riteish Deshmukh) and Bunty (Abhishek Bachchan) come armed with their own tricks leaving Batook with no choice but to give his approval for the alliance.
The film mostly relies on the quirks of the characters and one-liners to evoke humour. There is a plot and though it relies heavily on the comedy of mistaken identities (the kind which we have seen in several big budget commercial potboilers), it serves as a fairly good base for Sajid-Farhad to unleash their punch lines to make the audience laugh. The directors seem to be fully aware of the limitations in the script and thus, they do not stretch it beyond a point which would bore the audience.
Sajid–Farhad had made a fairly good transition from being writers to directors with ‘Entertainment’. This time around, they have operated with a bigger budget, a bigger cast, a bigger scale and they deliver. They show a marked growth in their capabilities as directors. The script (story: K. Subhaash and Jitendra Parmar, screenplay: Sajid Farhad and Rajan Agrawal) is simple packs in several humorous scenes in it. The dialogues (Sajid–Farhad) tower above the script and make you laugh at several occasions. The songs (Toshi – Sharib, Sohail Sen, Tanishk Bagchi and Mika Singh) fit in well within the narrative. The background score (Julius Packiam) is decent; some unnecessary sound effects inserted for comical effect should not have been incorporated. The cinematography (Vikas Sivaraman) lends a bright and colourful look to the film. The editing (Steven Bernard) is good.
Akshay Kumar displays great comic timing as he switches effortlessly between Sandy and his alter ego Sundi. Abhishek Bachchan pulls off a decent effort; the energy and enthusiasm that resulted in a terrific performance in ‘Happy New Year’ is missing here. Riteish Deshmukh excels in evoking humour both verbally and through physical movements. Out of the three leading actresses, only Jacqueline Fernandez leaves some sort of an impression. Nargis Fakhri fails to emote and Lisa Haydon gets minimal scope to perform. Boman Irani gets a very meaty role and he conveys comedy and menace equally well. Chunky Pandey lights up every scene he appears in and one longs to see more of him. Nikitin Dheer, Samir Kochhar and Arav Chowdhary deliver respectable performances.
‘Housefull 3’ has Farhad – Sajid’s stamp all over it. The writers-directors incorporate the kind of humour they have been specializing in years. Though one would have liked to have come across a more thoughtful plot in this comedy, it still manages to entertain and make you laugh sporadically.
Rating: 3/5