By Gaurav Malani for Indiatimes.com, Click Here for Original.
Cast: Anil Kapoor, Nana Patekar, Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, Mallika Sherawat, Paresh Rawal and Feroz Khan
Director: Anees Bazmee
Rating:
We have been habituated to ‘slapstick’ comedies with a staple diet of humour served by the likes of David Dhawan and Priyadarshan in the past couple of decades. So audiences no more try to find logic or grumble over credibility in farcical films as far as it is entertaining. So the ‘leave-your-brains-home’ genre is all welcome.
But what is strictly uninvited is uninteresting interruptions in the form of the formulaic songs in the standard four-track format of a ‘dream song’, ‘a love song’, ‘an item number’ and ‘an engagement celebration song’. All uninspiring and disturbing the flow!
Anyways am I doing a music review? Certainly not, so let’s get on to the film. Anees Bazmee’s last film No Entry was a cult-comedy. With his next film Welcome he goes literally opposite, not just in its title but also in its treatment. Of course the basic humour is intact but while No Entry had a linear approach on the theme of adultery, the screenplay of Welcome follows a multi-dimensional approach with the focus of the film changing every half an hour. So the three hour drama has a six-track plot.
The first plot is the buildup where Rajiv (Akshay Kumar) falls in love with Sanjana (Katrina Kaif). There are clichés galore with love-at-first-sight funda, interfering songs and redundant romance. The romance is also rushed and before you blink your eyes the duo is in love. But one doesn’t complain for the audience just expects the love to get over and the laughter to begin.
Hope arrives in the second plot with the entry of Uday Shetty (Nana Patekar) and Majnu Bhai (Anil Kapoor). Uday is an aspiring actor while Majnu is a painter in his own right. Both futile in their arts are successful underworld dons and want to marry off Uday’s sister Sanjana to a respectable family. But no family agrees. Including Rajiv’s, whose uncle, Dr. Ghungroo (Paresh Rawal) doesn’t approve of the don’s repute.
Confusion, commotion and chaos follows in the third plot and Ishika (Mallika Sherawat) enters in the fourth who calls off the couple’s engagement claiming to be Rajiv’s fiancée. In the fifth plot Rajiv takes the onus of giving the dons a clean chit while transforming them into white-collared citizens. Uday gets a chance to show his acting abilities in a staged film while Majnu gets a Laila to romance.
The final sub-plot goes complete off-track where godfather RDX (Feroz Khan) enters and seeks revenge on his dead son who incidentally comes back from the death to create more mayhem. Bazmee continues to keep his climaxes hanging. Literally! While in No Entry the male trio was hanging from a cliff, here the entire starcast oscillates in a cottage dangling from a hilltop clearly inspired from Kamal Hassan’s tetra-role Tamil film Michael Madana Kamarajan .
Does that summary boggle you down? Then the film will exhaust you even more. Welcome is too fast paced and hardly gives you time to breathe, gasp, feel, absorb, react or relate. That’s the objective. Enjoy the moment, don’t mull over it. Bazmee’s multilayered screenplay is too haphazard and at times appears fabricated. But as he complicates the proceedings, he also entertains and subsequently simplifies the screenplay with his dialogues. Some catch-lines are hilarious esp. Anil Kapoor’s inanities that reminds of his Deewana Mastana antics (again scripted by Bazmee).
Surprisingly and thankfully so, this Firoz Nadiadwala film isn’t action heavy except for a car crash sequence in the first half that too is interspersed with some funny gags. Nana Patekar’s horse-riding scene is uproarious while the pre-climax in a cremation ground too has its amusing moments.
The pre-discussed department of music is both uninspiring and interrupting. The Malaika Arora item number is way out of the narrative while a shrilling Himesh Reshammiya number in the very start is unintentionally funny. Almost all the songs are easily avoidable.
It’s a welcome change to see Nana Patekar and Anil Kapoor in refreshing roles and envigourated characters. While Nana continues his trademark eccentricity, he adds spunk to the humourous side of his character as well. His efforts as a wannabe actor and attempts at dancing are simply side-splitting. Anil Kapoor’s spirited act reminds of his youthful roles in the likes of Jaanbaaz , Ram Lakhan and Mr. India . Not that he shows any sign of aging in the film.
Akshay Kumar’s character is on the receiving end, quite contrary to the roles he has been playing off-late. His simpleton character is somewhere in the vein of his champu character from Jaan-e-mann . Paresh Rawal, with his regular comic characters, has by now attained a standard style of invoking laughter. Katrina Kaif looks immaculately beautiful. Mallika Sherawat adds to the glamour quotient. Feroz Khan is neither completely menacing nor wholly humourous. But his character is designed to suit the tone of the film.
With no expectations of a No Entry, Welcome is pretty welcome.
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