Housefull 5 Movie Review: An Absolutely Nonsensical Film Starring Akshay Kumar

Housefull 5 Sets Sail – and Sinks – With Forced Laughter and Absurd Twists

Housefull 5 promises humor at first but it soon devolves into mayhem. It is meaningless and far from thin to claim that there is a line separating the purely absurdist from the completely absurdist. It seems that the creators of the fifth Housefull movie which is a thriller-comedy are unaware that droll and daft are not the same thing nor that fatuously fluffy is not the same as freakily funny. Regretfully the former appears in the film much more than the latter.

A Sinking Script and Direction

Producer Sajid Nadiadwala wrote Housefull 5 which was co-written and directed by Tarun Mansukhani (who is as well-known for the disastrous Drive as he is for the successful Dostana). The film is set on a luxury cruise ship and ventures into rough waters never finding a way out of the deep end.

Women as Props and Gags Gone Long

Housefull 5 which relies on gags that frequently go on for far too long hovers between being blatantly ridiculous and being completely over the top. The women gathered here – Jacqueline Fernandez Sonam Bajwa Nargis Fakhri Chitrangda Singh and Soundarya Sharma – are predictably toys taken from the woodwork for the dance numbers and for infrequent and futile attempts at pointless humor. 

A Murder Mystery With No Mystery

A masked murderer on a cruise ship that has sailed to commemorate the 100th birthday of the seventh-richest business magnate in the United Kingdom commits a horrific murder in the opening scene of Housefull 5. More killings occur but the identity of the masked murderer is never revealed until two suspended British-Indian police officers arrive at the ship to look into the crimes. The chief of Interpol who is also Indian and smokes a beedi follows them. 

Logic Takes a Backseat to Lunacy

It’s a free-for-all and the movie doesn’t miss any chance to suppress any rationality that might be attempting to break through the chaos and give the events the appearance of true craziness. Although Housefull 5 is hilarious, its respect-no-limits and pull-no-punches humor is detrimental to its own health.

Three Jollys and a Fortune

If that means that at least some of the franchise’s loyal fans won’t have a jolly good time watching the antics of a group of investigators, intruders and imposters on a liner that veers into endless chaos.

A trio of men each posing as Jolly the alleged heir to the deceased businessmans fortune and their wives appear and assert their claim to the wealth that Ranjeet Dobriyal (Ranjeet) accumulated and is awaiting his legitimate heir to inherit. 

First on the scene are Zara (Sonam Bajwa) and Jalabuddin alias Jolly (Riteish Deshmukh) then Jalbhushan alias Jolly (Abhishek Bachchan) and Sasikala (Jacqueline Fernandez) and Julius alias Jolly (Akshay Kumar) and Kaanchi (Nargis Fakhri).

Supporting Characters Add to the Madness

Members of Dobriyals motley board of directors which includes Shiraz (Shreyas Talpade) Maya (Chitrangda Singh) Bedi (Dino Morea) and Dev (Fardeen Khan) the magnates son from his second wife greet the guests with increasing annoyance and perplexity.

Murder, Mayhem and Meltdown

Everyone is suspected as the murders increase and the intruders go wild. Additionally the film completely loses its direction as the rigmarole gets wilder, wackier, sillier and nuttier giving viewers plenty of opportunities to laugh at the absurdity that is playing out on screen. 

Franchise Nostalgia and Forced References

Even so it’s easy to understand why the constant nonsense might find enough takers to never go out of style even though it’s getting out of hand and making a mockery of filmmaking.

If the content on screen doesn’t appeal to you you might focus on the many forced allusions that Housefull 5 makes to the series earlier films which started fifteen years ago as well as to elements taken from other contemporary myths about Hindi cinema and movie stars careers.

Read More : Neha Kakkar’s Birthday Bash: Celebrating the Queen of Bollywood Music

Throwbacks That Miss More Than They Hit

The character played by Akshay Kumar gets into endless trouble with monkeys (like in the original Housefull) and a macaw (like in Housefull 4 a movie that didn’t have much to offer a discriminating audience but did well at the box office). 

In Housefull 5 Boman Irani is conspicuously absent but his Batuk Patel is heavily featured with Johny Lever filling in as the chatty and careless security guard on the cruise ship. The actors Chennai Express character Thangabali is duly acknowledged as Nikitin Dheer dons the outfit of the ships muscular captain. 

A Mad Mix of Cameos and Chaos

Bhiddu and Baba who are misnamed are played by Sanjay Dutt and Jackie Shroff respectively. The insane police officers make their way to the ship in order to track down the fugitive killer. Every time Dutt appears on screen the soundtrack plays an instrumental remix of the main song from Nayak Nahi Khalnayak Hoon.

Read More : Sydney Sweeney Turns Heads with New Bath Water Soap Collaboration

Interpol, Folk Dance, and a Whole Lot of Noise

At one point khalnayak is substituted with nalayak which is precisely the word that comes to mind when trying to comprehend and get past the film’s crass and mostly misguided attempts to make us laugh. 

Finally as the head of Interpol Nana Patekar is given the headroom he needs to embody his Marathi manoos moorings. As he arrives and separates the pigeons Fugdi fu continues to blare constantly. 

He then teaches the men and women on the cruise ship the moves that define the folk-dance form having established his credentials as a man who knows too much but not enough. Everyone appears to be enjoying themselves as they join in. However, what about the people who paid to witness this barbaric spectacle?

Final Verdict: Sinking Under Its Own Absurdity

Housefull 5 would not have looked like the unrestrained celebration of the absurd that it does if it weren’t so full of unalloyed bilge. To be clear this is not what we signed up for. 

Housefull 5 is a defiantly flaky comedy that is undermined by hopelessly flaccid plotting. This critic has only seen one of the two versions available at the multiplexes.