Sajid Khan announced at the onset of Housefull that his film is a ‘humble homage’ to Manmohan Desai, Prakash Mehra, Feroz Khan, Hrishikesh Mukherjee and other legendary directors who defined making of entertaining movies in Bollywood. At the end of the movie, I started remembering and missing those great directors. It is very easy to praise Manmohan Desai or Parkash Mehra’s style of making movies, but to come out with a product close to them is next to impossible.

Housefull is another ‘leave your brains at home’ kind of comedy movie from Sajid Khan. Housefull can be described as a mix of tales from the recent movies, the unlucky man character from ‘Kismat Konnection’, the Kanta Bai shocking and confusing scenes from ‘Kal Ho Na Ho’, the house drama from ‘Garam Masala’ mistaken identities from ‘All the Best’ and the list is never ending. Now, where does originality comes from?

The story revolves around an unlucky hero Aarush (Akshay Kumar). He is the most unlucky guy in the world. Forget about others calling him unlucky, he himself calls as Panuati (the most unlucky person) throughout the movie. He dose not posses any positive qualities but waiting for an opportunity to get married and come out of his bad destiny.

Instead of working hard with intelligence he believes only true love can surpass his bad luck. Here begins his journey of finding true love, meeting his friend Bob (Riteish Deshmukh) and his wife Hital (Lara Dutta) marrying and divorcing Devika (Jiah Khan) and finding true love in Sandy (Deepika Padukone); adding more confusion and perplexity in the process which results in this hilarious comedy of errors. In one line this is a story of normal people caught in abnormal situations.

The pace of the movie is bit slow in the first half, but picks up in the second half after Bomman Irani’s entry. A couple of scenes with a parrot, tiger and a monkey were silly and seem to be added to bring some forced laughter sequences. The movie fails to come out as a complete entertainer and lacks the required pace which is a must for a comedy movie. The humour is visible only in few scenes in the first half and a bit more in the second half. Finally the climax unnecessarily drags on and gets boring.

Sajid Khan successfully manages great performances from his cast. Akshay Kumar is fantastic, watch out for his expressions, body language and great comic talent who often gets his timing right. Ritesh Deshmukh surprises with a brilliant performance. The leading ladies Deepika, Lara and Jiah look sizzling hot in the short clothes but fall short of talent.

Arjun Rampal looks dashing and impresses in his short role. The versatile actor Boman Irani is perfect in the role of Gujarati father and nice to see Randhir Kapoor after a long time as a London Casino owner. Lilette Dubey is as usual good in a seductive act; Mallika Arora is just wasted in an insignificant role. The surprise package of the movie is undoubtedly Chinky Pandey as Aakhri Paasta. He is little irritating but hilarious and steals the show in a brief role.

Direction wise Sajid Khan has put all his efforts to make the audiences laugh. He has worked on every character‘s get up, style, talking accent, dressing and related factors. He succeeded in entertaining his viewers, irrespective of flaws.

Shankar Ehsaan Loy’s music perfectly syncs in with the mood of the film. Oh girl and Mika’s foot tapping number ‘Apni To Jaise Taise’ featuring Jacqueline Fernandez is a chartbuster and is fun to watch. Vikas Sivaraman’s camera work is a visual delight, especially while capturing the Italy locales and the beaches in a mesmerising style adds the requisite regal touch to the film. Other production departments have also done their jobs very well.

Overall director Sajid Khan has not completely let down, wish he could have opted for a more innovative plot. Housefull is extravagant but as a complete entertainer it doesn’t live up to the expectation. With a weak script and sluggish pace, the movie fails to hold the viewers’ interest consistently. Though it has some funny moments, but the movie only reaches half the mark with its routine emotional plot and uneven funny sequences. All in all, Housefull is just a time pass watch.