Housefull 4: a tragicomedy
I can't promise to make a blog on all the good movies I watch, but some movies deserve some special attention because of how bad they are.
Let's first break this down by character.
Akshay Kumar is a barber in London who forgets things upon shock from a loud sound or incident (like ringing a bell at a temple). When this happens in the movie (maybe like 4-5 times), his eyes enlarge in an eerie-but-supposed-to-be-comedic fashion and he lets out a little giggle. Then in each of these 5 times that this happens in the movie, they repeat the event that causes the shock forcing the audience to watch Akshay let out a creepy giggle for a minute while his eyes dilate from out of his eye sockets and back in and back out... In the time jump to 1312 Simarkandh(?), Akshay is a rebellious prince who lost all his hair after his father cut it once as a ritual as a baby. His name is Bala though so there is a contradiction here that one of my friends found hilarious and perhaps is enough reason to watch the movie according to him. Furthermore, there is an admittedly catchy theme music whenever he is up to anything sinister ("bala bala bala ...").
The female cast (Kriti Sanon, Pooja Hegde, and Kriti Kharbandha) did not have any special roles or anything odd or particularly funny about them). Pretty much just stereotypical heroine lines, hitting Akshay in the groin a couple times, getting dragged on the ground on a noose by a running horse, etc. I think Kriti had a slightly leading role in retrospective because she was the girl who did these things above I think ^. When I think about, not many Bollywood actresses have powerful roles in the movie where the story is centered on them or even given equal focus to their male counterparts. Is it because the writers, producers, and directors are all male? Maybe that is why Zoya Akhtar's films are refreshingly different: even though they tell commonplace stories or occurrences usually, the perspective is anything but common for Bollywood.
Bobby Deol is Akshay's brother in contemporary period and plays the role of strong muscular tough guy. In the timeskip, he is the princesses unbeatable body guard. I would say he had a largely supporting role where nothing was funny. They had to make a role for him in the past so he was a bodyguard who showed Bala what's up when Bala tried to impress the princesses. Cool story bro.
Riteish Deshmukh. God. Usually I love the characters he plays because the writers give him good lines and his weird eye displacement naturally makes him funny to look at. In the timeskip however, he plays the role of a dance teacher for the princesses (so he has to pretend to be a eunuch). But then he also has a romance with one of the girls (Pooja?) so he's not a eunuch?? What the heck.
OK before I finish with Jonny Lever & Jamie Lever, let me address my main grievances for this movie because I realize it isn't even the characters that caused me PAIN while watching the film. I think it was the bare repetitiveness of scenes. Akshay's googli-eyes. The repeat of a love story from modern times to historical times then back to modern times in the setting of Simarkandh where the altar fell down but this time it fell on the true villain. But like what the heck, the true villain had no reason to be in the king's court, he had no reason to be specially esteemed? The constant reliance on making an audience laugh from birds pooping on the actors suggests that the directors seriously think their audience's threshold for comedy is equivalent to that of some grade school kids. There was no originality in the comedy that was present in the movie. All of it has been seen a long time before in my life. The plot makes no sense because why would people remember something that happened 600 years ago and then act based on those memories. But whatever, I'll forgive the lack of a meaningless plot but at least respect your audience and give the due diligence to write proper jokes in the 2.5 hour movie! An example of a joke that an experienced director Farhad Samji will pass for in his movies:
There was brief 5 minutes of the movie where I just refused to look at the screen so I turned towards the back of my seat and plugged my ears with my fingers. I've never had to resort to this. Anyways, I think I'm done with this review. It's a tragicomedy because it is a supposed comedy but you end up walking away from the film, crying. Thank you for this wakeup call. I won't blindly go to watch a movie just for the hell of it now.
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| Bala and his girl? or his sister-in-law? |
Akshay Kumar is a barber in London who forgets things upon shock from a loud sound or incident (like ringing a bell at a temple). When this happens in the movie (maybe like 4-5 times), his eyes enlarge in an eerie-but-supposed-to-be-comedic fashion and he lets out a little giggle. Then in each of these 5 times that this happens in the movie, they repeat the event that causes the shock forcing the audience to watch Akshay let out a creepy giggle for a minute while his eyes dilate from out of his eye sockets and back in and back out... In the time jump to 1312 Simarkandh(?), Akshay is a rebellious prince who lost all his hair after his father cut it once as a ritual as a baby. His name is Bala though so there is a contradiction here that one of my friends found hilarious and perhaps is enough reason to watch the movie according to him. Furthermore, there is an admittedly catchy theme music whenever he is up to anything sinister ("bala bala bala ...").
The female cast (Kriti Sanon, Pooja Hegde, and Kriti Kharbandha) did not have any special roles or anything odd or particularly funny about them). Pretty much just stereotypical heroine lines, hitting Akshay in the groin a couple times, getting dragged on the ground on a noose by a running horse, etc. I think Kriti had a slightly leading role in retrospective because she was the girl who did these things above I think ^. When I think about, not many Bollywood actresses have powerful roles in the movie where the story is centered on them or even given equal focus to their male counterparts. Is it because the writers, producers, and directors are all male? Maybe that is why Zoya Akhtar's films are refreshingly different: even though they tell commonplace stories or occurrences usually, the perspective is anything but common for Bollywood.
Bobby Deol is Akshay's brother in contemporary period and plays the role of strong muscular tough guy. In the timeskip, he is the princesses unbeatable body guard. I would say he had a largely supporting role where nothing was funny. They had to make a role for him in the past so he was a bodyguard who showed Bala what's up when Bala tried to impress the princesses. Cool story bro.
Riteish Deshmukh. God. Usually I love the characters he plays because the writers give him good lines and his weird eye displacement naturally makes him funny to look at. In the timeskip however, he plays the role of a dance teacher for the princesses (so he has to pretend to be a eunuch). But then he also has a romance with one of the girls (Pooja?) so he's not a eunuch?? What the heck.
OK before I finish with Jonny Lever & Jamie Lever, let me address my main grievances for this movie because I realize it isn't even the characters that caused me PAIN while watching the film. I think it was the bare repetitiveness of scenes. Akshay's googli-eyes. The repeat of a love story from modern times to historical times then back to modern times in the setting of Simarkandh where the altar fell down but this time it fell on the true villain. But like what the heck, the true villain had no reason to be in the king's court, he had no reason to be specially esteemed? The constant reliance on making an audience laugh from birds pooping on the actors suggests that the directors seriously think their audience's threshold for comedy is equivalent to that of some grade school kids. There was no originality in the comedy that was present in the movie. All of it has been seen a long time before in my life. The plot makes no sense because why would people remember something that happened 600 years ago and then act based on those memories. But whatever, I'll forgive the lack of a meaningless plot but at least respect your audience and give the due diligence to write proper jokes in the 2.5 hour movie! An example of a joke that an experienced director Farhad Samji will pass for in his movies:
Kabootar ka yuck brings good luckOK, the most miserable part of the experience of this movie is that you can't even sit and just watch some garbage and tolerate it with friends. Like it's not something that afterwards you want to talk about because of the garbage you have to witness with Johnny Lever's character. He starts off as a hotel clerk who does not believe in the connection to the past. But apparently, his past avatar was a maid of the palace so after time skip, who is Johnny? He is a transvestite male who has an unrequited ishq for another supporting male character whose name I care not to look up. So the last 30-40 minutes of the movie, all Johnny does is run around chasing another man asking him to marry him. The other man, clearly disturbed is running away frantically. Like what. the. hell.
There was brief 5 minutes of the movie where I just refused to look at the screen so I turned towards the back of my seat and plugged my ears with my fingers. I've never had to resort to this. Anyways, I think I'm done with this review. It's a tragicomedy because it is a supposed comedy but you end up walking away from the film, crying. Thank you for this wakeup call. I won't blindly go to watch a movie just for the hell of it now.
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