Housefull 5

They say too many cooks spoil the broth, but in Housefull 5, too many Jollys cook up a full-blown fever dream aboard a cruise ship where plotlines come to die and then promptly resurrect themselves with dance numbers. Welcome to the Housefull 5 movie, a chaotic comedy-thriller-murder-mystery-family-reunion-courtroom-heist-caper (yes, all of those) where no one is who they say they are, everyone is possibly a murderer, and the parrot might actually be the most intelligent of the lot. Let’s dive into the Housefull 5 movie full story, its ending, which is explained here, cast, trailer, characters, and more.

2010 में आई सबसे पहली ‘हाउसफुल’ का रिव्यू ‘फिल्मी कलियां’ मैगज़ीन में करने के बाद मैंने इस सीरिज़ की अगली फिल्मों यानी ‘हाउसफुल 2’, ‘हाउसफुल 3’ और ‘हाउसफुल 4’ का रिव्यू नहीं किया था। दरअसल इस सीरिज़ की फिल्में जिस किस्म की मैड कॉमेडी परोसती हैं, उन्हें रिव्यू की ज़रूरत भी नहीं होती। लेकिन कॉमेडी के नाम पर रायता फैलाते-फैलाते ‘हाउसफुल 4’ ने जब कॉमेडी का कचरा किया तो मुझे लगा कि इस 5वीं वाली का रिव्यू किया जाए-इसलिए भी कि पहली बार ऐसा हुआ है जब कोई हिन्दी फिल्म ‘हाउसफुल 5ए’ और ‘हाउसफुल 5बी’ के नाम से रिलीज़ हुई है। बता दूं कि मैंने दोनों फिल्में देखीं। दोनों एक ही हैं, बस अंत के 20 मिनट में यह बदलाव किया गया है कि दोनों में कातिल अलग-अलग हैं। अरबों की दौलत का मालिक रणजीत डोबरियाल एक क्रूज़ पर अपना सौवां जन्मदिन मनाने जा रहा है। अचानक आई मौत से पहले वह वसीयत कर जाता है कि उसकी दौलत का वारिस उसका बेटा जॉली होगा। अचरज तब होता है जब शिप पर तीन-तीन जॉली अपनी-अपनी पत्नियों के साथ पहुंच जाते हैं। कौन है इनमें से असली वाला जॉली? कोई है भी या…! तभी शिप पर एक कत्ल होता है और शक इन तीनों जॉलियों और उनकी बीवियों पर आता है जिसकी जांच करने दो पुलिस वाले और उनका एक गुरु शिप पर पहुंचते हैं। वैसे शक के दायरे में शिप के स्टाफ के भी कुछ लोग हैं। किसने किया होगा यह कत्ल? और आखिर क्यों…!

I’ve chuckled a grand total of two times across five instalments of the Housefull franchise. It says something that, in both instances, the gag involved an animal (not the film). No humans were harmed in the making. The snoring crocodile from Housefull 2 (2012) broke through my defences. I have a fondness for crocodiles (on screen), so to hear one snore in his post-lunch sleep was a dream come true I never knew I needed. In Housefull 5, it’s a parrot named Gucci that attacks a man who killed said parrot’s dad in one of the previous films — all of this scored to the Om Shanti Om soundtrack, lest we assume that only human characters are allowed to have reincarnation revenge tracks. Two men team up to bodyslam Gucci and pin him down to the count of three like a wrestler. I might have also grinned when Akshay Kumar smashes his fingers and Jackie Shroff gives him a guitar to make music out of those quivering fingers. It’s an inspired piece of inanity in a Bollywood franchise that feasts on the lowest hanging fruits.

Ask me the plot of the last four Housefull movies and all I can recall are crowded frames filled with cringey, racist humour glorifying dumb blokes, dim-witted women, scowling fathers, random animals and rampant innuendoes designed to appease the lowest common denominator in the audience. Like or loathe, the shtick is raking in the moolah and now there’s a fifth film in the franchise keeping up its tradition of revelling in stupidity and birdbrain imagination. Only Housefull 5 is so rubbish, you’d think none of the actors, 17 or so of them, have any inkling as to where the script is heading and take the extempore challenge too far. Out of ideas for a while now and resorting to gimmicks like two endings – luring viewers into double viewings and ordeal – this Tarun Mansukhani directed fool fest, is the most idiotic thing I’ve watched this year so far.

The death of an ageing billionaire (Ranjeet) on his luxury cruise brings chaos to the lives of those aboard the ship. His will names his son ‘Jolly’, as an heir to his property. Chaos turns into frenzy when three Jollys (Akshay Kumar, Abhishek Bachchan, Riteish Deshmukh) show up to claim the wealth. If the plot wasn’t crowded enough, there’s a masked killer on the loose and everyone’s a suspect. Who’s the killer and who’s the real Jolly? Housefull franchise‘s existence is rooted in slapstick comedy, so you walk in knowing what to expect. Akshay Kumar slapping CGI monkeys, girls blatantly objectified and Riteish Deshmukh gobbling a parrot as annoying as the one in ‘Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon’, don’t surprise you. You snigger at lines like ‘Thokte raho……. Taaliya’, ‘mera popat kabhi nahi uthega’, but overlook the cringe because that’s what the brand is all about. What surprises you is the utter lack of humour, even dirty humour if we may say so in the script and sheer wastage of a zillion actors who are known for their comic timing.

For multiple reasons, it is difficult to write about a film like Housefull 5. The first and the most simple reason is that it is not a film. This is a string of perverse jokes, lewd gags, lame dialogues and loud decibels that play out in a loop over a mostly tortuous 166 minutes. Second, the makers are delusional enough to think this is a film, because of which they have released two versions — ‘A’ and ‘B’ — both of which have the same beginning and middle but different endings. Having endured almost three hours of Housefull A — with no intention of watching Housefull B, even if held at gunpoint — I can safely say that even if 20 more versions of Housefull 5 are released, each of them will be unwatchable.

The setting is lavish. But murders aboard a cruise are not novel. Nor is the mystery over who’s Jolly, the true successor of a dead billionaire. In this case, 100-year-old birthday boy Ranjeet (played by villain Ranjeet) who’s succumbed to a heart attack. As the trailer suggests, Jalabuddin alias Jolly (Riteish Deshmukh), Jalbhushan alias Jolly (Abhishek A Bachchan) and Julius alias Jolly (Akshay Kumar) turn up, each claiming to be the real inheritor. An Amar, Akbar, Anthony trio, in case you’ve missed the point. Producer Sajid Nadiadwala who credits himself with the story and screenplay with help from Farhad Samji for screenplay and dialogue, attempts Priyadarshan style mayhem. The doctor aboard (Akashdeep Sabir) who can test their DNAs and find the real Jolly is killed. A couple of crew members who are suspect are also bumped off.