A comic crawl
There are a lot of things going for Housefull 4. First, the star cast of Akshay Kumar, Kriti Sanon, Riteish Deshmukh, Bobby Deol, Pooja Hegde and Chunky Pandey, among others.
Second, it’s genuinely funny. And to top it off, director Farhad Samji adds, for good measure, healthy doses of drama and action.
Akshay’s bald king Bala is the clear standout, with his idiosyncrasies and quirks.
The film is set in two eras — 1419 and 2019. In 2019, Harry (Akshay), Max (Bobby) and Roy (Riteish) own a barbershop in London and are deeply in debt. So they devise a plan to marry three very wealthy sisters.
Harry suffers from shortterm memory loss on hearing any loud sounds and often has flashbacks of a life he led 600 years ago.
Early in Housefull 4, we see him in Sitamgarh, circa 1419.
Over time, he convinces the others that his flashbacks are memories and that they all knew each other in this other life.
We are then introduced to their period avatars, King Bala (Akshay), Bangdu Maharaj (Riteish) and Dharamputra (Bobby).
Through the past, the three men discover that they are about to marry the wrong women, and get a glimpse of just how wrong it will all go if they go through with their plan.
The humour of Housefull 4 a vast improvement over that of parts 1, 2 and 3, but the pace drops to a crawl in the second half. Akshay keeps things going.
He livens up the proceedings every time he appears on screen, but even he is let down by the underdeveloped nature of his Harry character.
Kriti is convincing, both as a princess and a woman of today. Yesteryear villain Ranjit, senior actor Manoj Pahwa and Johhny Lever are in their element. But Rana Daggubati is wasted in a cameo.
And Riteish and Chunky Pandey, with their superb comic timing, are vastly under-utilised in the film. Watch out for the beautiful choreography of ‘Ek chumma’, and the catchy rhythm of ‘Bala, shaitaan ka saala’.
All in all, Housefull 4 is a light, if slow, festive watch. Make time for it if you’re a fan of the franchise and, of course, Akshay Kumar.