An outdated comedy that is more annoying than funny
THE sequel to 2003 comedy Hungama premiered on Hotstar recently and sees Paresh Rawal return as Radheshyam Tiwari, who now seems happily settled into an affluent life with a beautiful wife.
Meanwhile, a young man has his world turned upside down when a college sweetheart turns up and claims that he is the father of her baby. While trying desperately to disapprove that he is the father, his life gets complicated further when Radheshyam Tiwari mistakenly thinks his attractive wife is having an affair with him. What follows is a slapstick comedy of errors that makes little sense and tries too hard to be funny.
It is no surprise that Ayushmann Khurrana, Kartik Aaryan, Siddharth Malhotra and other actors turned down this Bollywood remake of 1994 Malayalam comedy Minnaram, as Hungama 2 director Priyadarshan admitted. The leave-your-brainsat-home comedy may have worked 15-20 years ago, but now it just looks hopelessly outdated and has a nonsense storyline that soon gets annoying.
Overacting from the entire cast and poor music that sounds like it has been plucked from another era drag this dire film down even further.
Hungama 2 was hailed as the comeback of Shilpa Shetty Kundra, but she has little screen time and a role that lacks any substance. It is more like an extended cameo and she has little to do. The film is concentrated more on the other characters, and none are interesting enough to keep you engrossed. The are some engaging performances from veteran actors Ashutosh Rana, Paresh Rawal, Johnny Lever and Rajpal Yadav, who provide some funny moments, but even they struggle to inject any kind of life into this flat comedy.
The world seems to have moved on, but director Priyadarshan seems to be stuck in a different era.