Director – Farhad Samji
Cast – Akshay Kumar, Kriti Sanon, Arshad Warsi, Abhimanyu Singh, Prateik Babbar, Saharsh Kumar Shukla, Seema Biswas, Mohan Agashe
Farhad Samji and Akshay Kumar combo has always delivered slapstick humour with divided verdicts, which, if once you numb down your brain and take everything with a pinch of salt, could somehow work.
Lured by the interesting central character and the cast I kept myself optimistic about it without keeping high hopes, obviously!
But unfortunately, the film failed to work for me except in parts.
The major flaw was the writing.
I had tuned myself to the slapstick category of humour. After all, I did manage to find Houseful4 funny.
But this time I found the situational humour extremely average with cliched dialogues that seemed to be a bane most of the time. You could feel the funniness but not enough to elicit loud laughter.
Thank God for the excellent cast who gave their best shot and their sheer presence salvaged the humour to a great extent.
Arshad Warsi is dependable as always.
Saharsh Kumar Shukla brings smiles and laughter in all his scenes.
Sanjay Mishra is completely unutilized.
Didn’t find Prateik funny at all.
Pankaj Tripathi comes in late, for a short duration and failed to work up his magic this time.
It saddened me to see an actor of Seema Biswas’s calibre in such a small role with nothing to bite on.
It’s purely Akshay’s comic timing and charm that works all the way.
He fails to look menacing though (partly because our heart knows he’s the hero and partly because the violence has been mellowed down with humour).
Kriti Sanon looks great and delivers well.
The film did have its moments. There was laughter here and there but clearly not enough.
Neither did the music make a mark.
Overall it turned out a very disappointing fare. A must watch for Akshay Fans though. They have a very different Akshay to enjoy this time.
Score 2 on 5