Housefull 5 Movie Review: Akshay Kumar and Riteish Deshmukh’s cheap antics can’t save this sinking franchise

It all began in 2010. After their collaboration with Sajid Khan on Heyy Baby (2007), Akshay Kumar and Riteish Deshmukh came together for the no-brainer comedy-drama, Housefull. Among other things, the film was loosely based on Kamal Haasan’s 1998 Tamil film, Kaathala Kaathala. Who would have thought that fifteen years later, the fifth part of the franchise would release in the same week as the coveted comeback of Haasan and Mani Ratnam in Thug Life? Thug or not, life has absolutely absurd ways of circling back together. But times are such that even the two cinema stalwarts bringing a new film might not be enough. That’s why the new Housefull film strives to do something more, it wants to say more, cast more, act more and dance more while inherently remaining just a faithful bore.

Returning six years after the last part which was a strange reincarnation story, set in the past and present, Housefull 5 is a redux of sorts. It brings back the combined mess of the earlier parts and hides it under the layers of a scrappy murder-mystery. It is also timeless, much like how art should be. A hundred years from now, the film will still be as painful to watch unless the franchise spearheads into double digits to create its own competition. It tells a hanging story set on a cruise with no destination.

A grand party is to be hosted on the ship marking the 100^th birthday of businessman Ranjeet Dobriyal (Ranjeet). The man, however, dies, leaving all his fortune to a certain someone called Jolly. That’s when the characters of Akshay, Riteish and Abhishek Bachchan arrive, claiming to be the real Jolly. What follows is a murder, where the three are prime suspects along with their respective girlfriends, played by Nargis Fakhri, Sonam Bajwa and Jacqueline Fernandez.

Directed by: Tarun Mansukhani

Starring: Akshay Kumar, Riteish Deshmukh, Abhishek Bachchan, Jacqueline Fernandez, Sonam Bajwa, Nargis Fakhri, Sanjay Dutt, Jackie Shroff, Nana Patekar, Chitrangada Singh, Fardeen Khan, Chunky Pandey, Johnny Lever, Shreyas Talpade, Dino Morea, Ranjeet, Soundarya Sharma, Nikitin Dheer, and Akashdeep Sabir

When the plot doesn’t seem to go anywhere with these characters, more are introduced. Sanjay Dutt and Jackie Shroff make rather uneventful entries, in a lazy Rohit Shetty-esque car stunt sequence that seems to have been designed only to conclude with a rather lame, meta reference to Tiger Shroff’s meme-favorite dialogue, “Choti bachchi hai kya?”. When even that is not enough, Nana Patekar does a wild-card entry as a Maharashtrian whose dhoti being blown away a little becomes the butt of jokes. These are all desperate means of eliciting humor. Even the presence of these actors seems accidental to the film. There is no sense of character, rhythm or dignified screen presence that any of them are guaranteed. It is all wholly casual, built more on flat and often crude one-liners than carefully devised comic exchanges.

The franchise continues its legacy of vulgar, objectifying jokes on its female characters. They are in the film just to be touched inappropriately, and stared lecherously—all in the name of comedy. Soundarya Sharma’s character is made to wear revealing clothes and a running joke features her in instances where she has to bend over or rise up as other male characters put on their vulturous glances. Nargis is introduced by Akshay’s character by making her reveal her skin and prove that she is a true “foreigner”. The crudeness is repeatedly embedded in the writing and it spills into a rising sense of discomfort. Watching the film is no different than seeing a bunch of entitled men in real-life as they sit in groups making double meaning jokes and passing lewd comments on every female passerby. Akshay, with his puritan, patriotic image, Abhishek, who has come out of Shoojit Sircar’s sensible I Want to Talk and Riteish, who will be playing the Maratha warrior Shivaji in his next are all falling from grace here by normalising such behavior.

I remember going to watch the fourth part of the franchise in theatres with my family (as it's marketed large-heartedly as a family entertainer). We go in for the popular faces and hopes of shared laughter. We go in with a feeling of trust in our stars and a sense of safety in their presence but Housefull films don’t value that. We ended up squirming in our seats with discomfort. Maybe that’s what the franchise is all about. Maybe all of it is consciously designed to be petty and problematic. The first two parts were directed by Sajid Khan, who was later accused by multiple women in the #MeToo movement. Maybe that’s the legacy being continued here. Rest all is just a façade, including the much-marketed two endings, having a different killer in each one. After all that the film chooses to be, it doesn’t matter who the killer is. It’s no more a laughing matter.