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It all started off in the year 2010, with Akshay Kumar, Ritesh Deshmukh, Arjun Rampal, Deepika Padukone, Lara Dutta and (late) Jiah Khan all coming together under ‘one roof’ with the film titled HOUSEFULL, a film that proved to be a goldmine at the box-office. This was followed up by its second instalment titled HOUSEFULL 2, which, again, was a blockbuster at the ticket windows. This time round, the audiences are treated to the third instalment of the film, titled HOUSEFULL 3. Will HOUSEFULL 3 follow the fate of its ‘predecessors’ and live upto its name at the box-office or will it perish, let’s analyze.

The film starts off in the plush city of London where a gang of three robbers steal diamonds from a museum in broad daylight but get busted by the cops, thus landing in jail. This is followed by the introduction of the self-confessed ‘lucky papa’ of London, Batook Patel (Boman Irani) and his three darling daughters Ganga Patel (Jaqueline Fernandez), Jamuna Patel (Lisa Haydon) and Saraswati Patel (Nargis Fakhri). While Ganga is a M.D. in psychoanalysis, Jamuna is a wax figure maker & Saraswati is socially connected to a physically challenged society. Despite being the lucky father to three beautiful and dutiful grown up daughters, Batook Patel just does not want them to get married, for reasons best known to him. On the other hand, while the three daughters behave extremely cultured and civilized before their father, behind his back, they become just the opposite, which means ultra-glam and modern party animals. In other words, Ganga becomes Gracy, Jamuna becomes Jenny and Saraswati becomes Sarah. Besides being ultra-glam, all the three also have a boyfriend each in the form of Sandy (Akshay Kumar) a footballer with split personality disorder, rapper Bunty (Abhishek Bachchan) and a car racer Teddy (Riteish Deshmukh). Because of the existing situations and circumstances that prevail in the house, getting married to their respective boyfriends looks like an impossible dream for the three girls. Lured by Ganga, Jamuna and Saraswati’s strong financial background, when Sandy, Bunty and Teddy convince the girls to marry them, all the three girls reject their proposals citing an astrologer’s prediction. Amidst all this, enters the dreaded Mumbai don Urja Nagre (Jackie Shroff), who has a secret agenda of his own.

What was the reason for Batook Patel of not getting ‘his’ three daughters married, what is Urja Nagre’s big secret, what was the astrologer’s prediction that prevented the three girls from getting married to their respective boyfriends and how will the three boyfriends manage to marry their respective girlfriends, is what forms the rest of the film’s story.

First things first. Because HOUSEFULL 3 is a strong franchise that possesses higher recall brand value, expectations from the film are bound to be humungous. But, the flip side of the story is that the buzz around it is not that huge as anticipated. After having tasted immense success with HOUSEFULL and HOUSEFULL 2, the pressure is obviously high on the film’s screenplay writers (Sajid-Farhad, Rajan Agarwal) and its story writer (K. Subhash) to deliver with HOUSEFULL 3, who, after the initial hiccups and struggles, land up delivering what was expected of them. HOUSEFULL 3 belongs to the same school of zany comedies that gave us NO ENTRY, WELCOME and the GOLMAAL series. Conversely, to some, this genre of cinema may appear nonsensical and outrageous.

After having proved their mettle as film writers for a long time, HOUSEFULL 3 happens to be Sajid-Farhad’s second film as directors (the first one being ENTERTAINMENT). Not new to directing a multi starrer film, Sajid-Farhad land up doing a strictly average job with HOUSEFULL 3. While the film’s first half is funny with humorous one liners, the film’s second half tends to lose plot and go astray at regular intervals. However, it picks up its pace towards the end. With entertainment being the lifeline of the ‘HOUSEFULL’ series, directors Sajid-Farhad try their best to live upto the legacy, but struggle their way through.

As far as the performances are concerned, because the film is a multi-starrer, the spotlight just does not rest on any one individual’s laurels. Not new to such genre of films, Akshay Kumar is totally ‘at home’ in this film. Right from his impeccable comedy timing, his romantic scenes or action scenes, he delivers and how. Riteish Deshmukh, again an old and experienced hand with such a genre, seems to be on the home turf with this film. He does not disappoint the viewers with his comedy timing and delivery of punches and one liners. Abhishek Bachchan, a newcomer to the ‘HOUSEFULL’ series does try and put a decent act, although his character fails to convince the audience about his profession of being a rapper. A handful of scenes notwithstanding, the trio of Akshay Kumar, Riteish Deshmukh and Abhishek Bachchan take the comic quotient notches above the ordinary with their impeccable comic timing. On the other hand, Jacqueline Fernandez, Nargis Fakhri and Lisa Haydon do what they were expected to do – look gorgeous and provide the much needed glam quotient to the film. Despite the trio’s hiccups while mouthing Hindi dialogues, it’s Jacqueline Fernandez who stands out amongst the trio as far as the performances are concerned. Nargis Fakhri and Lisa Haydon are decent. Even though the veteran actor Boman Irani has been stereotyped in such over the top roles in many films by now, he still manages to bring something new to the table and lands up impressing. Jackie Shroff is as lovable and adorable. Other actors like Chunky Pandey and the three villainous guys (Nikitin Dheer, Sameer Kochhar, Arav Chowdhary) help the movie in moving forward.

Barring a couple of tracks like ‘Pyar Ki’ and ‘Taang Uthake’, the film’s music (Sohail Sen, Mika Singh, Sharib-Toshi, Tanishk Bagchi, Milind Gaba) fails to impress. One does miss the hit track, which could have worked as a hook. On the other hand, the film’s background music (Julius Packiam) is decent. A special mention to the film’s witty one liners and dialogues by Sajid-Farhad, even though a handful of them have been picked up from the social media and WhatsApp jokes. The humour of the film is strictly average, however the good part is that at a time and age when comedies are associated with vulgarity and double meaning dialogues, HOUSEFULL 3 has clean comedy.

The film’s cinematography (Vikas Sivaraman) is hugely superlative, with London and its plush locations captured and presented beautifully on the silver screen. Even though the film’s editing (Steven H. Bernard) is decent (if not outstanding), one does feel that the film should have been trimmed a bit more in its second half.

On the whole, HOUSEFULL 3 has all the constituents of an archetypal Hindi masala movie with hilarity, absurdity, humour, gags and punches in abundance. The film is a madcap entertainer which delivers guffaws, belly laughs and over-the-top slapstick humour in gigantic proportion. The film however is bound to get diverse reactions from the audiences. If you admire and relish these entertainers, and are passionate about cinema of this variety, then HOUSEFULL 3 is definitely a stress buster for you. Else, you can stay away from this. At the Box-Office, HOUSEFULL 3 will appeal only to the masses, the aam aadmi, who relish hardcore masala movies.