Subhash K. Jha speaks about Housefull

By Subhash K. Jha -

May 1, 2010 - 12:17 PM IST

This is a sly tongue firmly and stubbornly in cheek ,cheeky slick and chic comedy about a loser, or a panauti-a word the recurs ad

nauseum in this glorious gasbag of giggles winks nudges and innuendos packaged with such polished panache that you don't really care what the

Subhash K. Jha speaks about Housefull

inter-relations in the parodic plot finally signifyâ€¦

Maybe they signify nothing more than a numbing but pleasantly diverting nothingness. But who the heck cares, as long as the tumble of

confusions generates a hilarious havoc.

Housefull as the title suggests, is chockful of characters who bump into one another and into hard surfaces

(including the unresolved edges in the plot) without injury. It's all done in ricocheting rhythms of laughter that rises from the pit of the

plot's belly and moves upwards towards us, sometimes missing its target.

More than the screenplay (Milap Zaveri, Sajid Khan, Vibha Singh) which moves helter-skelter in every direction away from the centre of the

plot and just about succeeds in coming to a reasonably coherent conclusion, it is the bevy of characters who are positioned in the screenplay

with a supreme sense of pyramidal aptness.

Every actor shines because he or she knows the idea is to have fun and to transmit that fun to the audience. It's the actors' responsibility

to make the maze of inter-relations hold together. They succeed.

Yes, sometimes the actors seem to enjoy the comedy of energetic error more than we do. Beyond a point how many slap-happy

slipping-on-the-floor nudge-nudge-wink-wink oops-we-did-it-again rolling of the eyes biting-of-the-tongue jokes can we take??

But somehow it all holds together. Like a jigsaw done in the pages of a comic book and then put on celluloid Housefull evokes smiles

and chuckles in cramped and wide-open spaces. Seen as a comicbook caper Housefull succeeds in slamming the laughter in place without

slipping on its banana-peel humour.

There is a casino in London where our loser-hero is beckoned to stem losses, a casino waitress(Lara Dutta) whose traditional Gujarati

father(Boman Irani, as confidently spontaneous as ever) has disowned her for eloping with a man of her choice, a stern government agent(Arjun

Rampal, the only actor who doesn't get to smile in this chirpy chuckle-fest) , an overseved sexy-widow(Lilette Dubey) and assorted characters

who come and go in a whoosh of wacky misunderstandings , confused identity and half-resolved comic snarls.

Sajid Khan's earlier film Heyy Babyy was a minty mix of mirth and maudlinism . Housefull is a full-on flamboyant farce.

Strangely there's a subtlety even tenderness at times, to the way Sajid Khan handles the satirical material centered on the theme of a loser

who brings bad luck on himself so often that he begins to wonder if there's a method to the madness of his destiny.

Unlike most situational comedies Housefull chooses the lower octaves of storytelling. The scale is pitched down. Even when the

characters scream their lungs out we don't wince in discomfort. This is the most well-behaved comedy in recent times with an array of pert

but low-key performances.

Stripped of all buffoonery, Akshay Kumar does his most delicately balanced comic act ever. There's a mellow maturity to the way he balances

farce with a more underplayed style of comedy. Riteish Deshmukh provides Akshay with the right cues. So do the rest of the actors. Among the

three glamorous and sexy ladies Lara Dutta has the best comic timing and Deepika Padukone has the most thehrao in her outward

projection of the farcical element. Mention must be made of Chunky Pandey who brings the roof down with his Italian-Punjabi accent and

burlesque.

The visual quality, be it in London or Italy is exceedingly eye catching without the grins gathering a gallant garishness around the farce.