Cast: Akshay Kumar, Suniel Shetty, Arshad Warsi, Jacqueline Fernandez, Disha Patani, Raveena Tandon, Jackie Shroff, Paresh Rawal, Lara Dutta...
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Suniel Shetty, Arshad Warsi, Jacqueline Fernandez, Disha Patani, Raveena Tandon, Jackie Shroff, Paresh Rawal, Lara Dutta, Farida Jalal, Mukesh Tiwari, Yashpal Sharma, Shreyas Talpade, Tusshar Kapoor, Johnny Lever, Rajpal Yadav, Kiran Kumar, Krishna Abhishek, Kiku Sharda, Daler Mehndi, Aftab Shivdasani, Vindu Dara Singh, Urvashi Rautela
Directed By Ahmed Khan
Akshay Kumar, it seems, has returned to his genre of comedies (loud, exhausting, and completely idiotic comedies), after a stretch of bad — the most polite word I could think of — films reflecting his nationalism, and patriotism; this is quite a good news for the trajectory of his career, which was going downhill for the longest time now. Idiotic comedies are his "superpower” — this does not owe to the fact that he’s a good actor, but to the fact that he has good comic timing, and enough vigor to make the jokes ten times more effective; but his newer efforts in the genre don’t possess the same vigor and energy as his older ones did.
Welcome to the Jungle (both a spiritual successor and a direct successor in certain ways) boasts a gigantic cast full of A-list stars, which is honestly the only thing it can boast of, considering how unfunnily funny the humor gets at times: Farhad Samji needs to stop writing the dialogues for every film ever; and, to be fair, majority of the cast members don’t contribute in the slightest to the film, except for a reminder to the audience that the producers could afford such a big cast, and that the director was ballsy enough to work with a them. More than 3/4th of the cast remains unutilized by the end, making one question their worth in the film, and the film would be the same if you removed some of them entirely. Of course, the star of the film is Akshay Kumar, and to a certain extent, Suniel Shetty and Arshad Warsi as well, who don’t do justice to the iconic characters we’re led to believe they’re related to, but who are fun to watch nonetheless. Jacqueline Fernandez and Disha Patani are there merely to be objectified and subtly be made fun of; neither of them have a single line of dialogue that isn’t them being stupid (Fernandez is the “dumb-blond”, while Patani is the “stuck-up?” one).
Despite all of this, much like Housefull 5, the film somehow works, and quite successfully succeeds in what it set out to do. By no means was this film meant to be taken seriously — it doesn’t take itself seriously, which adds a little to the comedy; much like the films from the newer age of Bollywood comedies, this begs you to leave your brains back at home in order for it to provide the family entertainer-spectacle it so desperately tries to be.
The film is inspired (too kind of a word to use) by both Mel Brooks’ The Producers and Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder, which majority of the plot being copied directly from the latter. What Tropic Thunder had that made it work so effectively was its satirical and self-aware tone that this film tries to imitate but which ultimately comes off as disingenuous. (And the humor in Tropic Thunder is far superior.) This film, eventually, does end up taking the patriotic/nationalist route during its second half, which drains out all the comic momentum it had built up in the two hours of its runtime, and becomes an excruciating final forty-five minutes to get through. The introduction of the army officers acts as a barrier between the film and the patriotic version of the film, and the film would’ve greatly benefited if it had not included the final forty-five minutes of the runtime. Akshay Kumar’s other role is funny at times, but comes off as extremely superficial and one-noted (much like every character in the film). Jackie Shroff is one of the only characters in the film who doesn’t feel as one-noted as the other characters, alongside Raveena Tandon, who is quite effective in her portrayal of her character.
The VFX of the film is truly atrocious, with it feeling like an extremely low-budget film, albeit some low-budget films have better VFX than this. The direction is also not a highlight, and nothing would change if the director was someone else, as this feels more like a corporate-made film than it does a “humane” film. The film is also weighed down by its extremely long and unnecessary runtime, clocking in at around 170 minutes, due to which, some scenes naturally start feeling too long and unnecessary, but which make sense once you take into consideration the number of cast members.
The film falls under one of the loud-stupid-illogical-leave-
A group of quirky characters gets stuck in a dangerous jungle during a chaotic mission. Filled with confusion, criminals, and hilarious situations, they must work together to survive and find their way out.
By Ravit Mishra
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