Where to begin on Housefull 2... (After never having seen Housefull...)
Let's just say this film is INSANE. Like...whoa. It is absolutely nuts.
There are not words to describe it. Let's just say for an idea...there are four friends pretending to be "Jolly." ...all under the same roof. Add in feuding families, several arranged marriages (and love that crosses all of those planned marriages), a dad with a criminal past, a revenge plot... Yeah, it gets crazy.
But it's an awesome never-stop-laughing kind of crazy. It's kind of scattered all over the place, but it's hilarious. It's fun. I'd recommend seeing it if completely off-the-wall nuts is your cup of tea -- but I totally understand how it could not be your cup of tea.
Oh, that and crazy-long list of stars might be your cup of tea too:
Akshay Kumar, Asin (Thottumkal), John Abraham, Jacqueline
Fernandez, Ritesh Deshmukh, Zarine Khan, Shreyas Talpade, Shazahn Padamsee, Rishi
Kapoor, Randhir Kapoor, Mithun Chakraborty, Boman Irani, Chunky Pandey, Johnny
Lever, Ranjeet.
My thoughts otherwise are pretty scattered.
Everyone's favorite jodi. Or maybe just mine.
One: Out of the 5 million jodis in this movie, the best? Akki and John. Total bromance. This might as well have been a continuation of the Desi Boyz bromance. (And God, I do so love to look at John Abraham. Mmmmmmm.)
I love Ritesh Deshmukh. He is adorable. And I've never seen a movie with Shreyas Talpade/didn't know who he was, but he was pretty adorable too.
And who can go wrong with Rishi and Randhir Kapoor? (Also, random side note I just observed, Randhir could totally pass as white.)
Someone else I love -- Johnny Lever. ALWAYS makes me laugh. Perfect comic timing.
Asin, the only worthwhile female in this film, gettin' down.
On the other hand.... Chunky Pandey's character got annoying after five minutes and I was glad when he unceremoniously exited the movie. Which is sad because I love Chunky.
Except for Asin, the entire female cast could pretty much have fallen off the face of the earth in the movie and I wouldn't have cared. They had very little to do but dance (some of them poorly) and be pissed and introduced to people.
I loved the music. So, on a positive note, I end with THIS SONG of the four friends in college was one of the most hilarious things I have seen in a VERY long time.
It felt like eons since I’d seen Ek Main Aur Ekk
Tu when I went out again to see Agent Vinod. On top of that, I
delayed seeing it for several days as family and sickness got in the way. It also feels like eons since I've posted a review here.
Synopsis (kept very brief/basic to avoid spoiling):
RAW super Agent Vinod (Saif
Ali Khan) is tasked with finding and stopping a former Cold War Soviet
nuclear bomb that’s been put up for auction. In the process, he encounters
Doctor Ruby Mendes/Iram Parveen Bilal (Kareena
Kapoor), who at times works with him, at times against him — a recipe, of
course, for love.
Basically, Agent Vinod is your typical James Bond-style shoot ’em up movie with
Indian flare.
Overall, I thought the movie was a good one-time watch, but probably not
something I’d care to watch again multiple times. My cousin who went with me
(the one who’s newly introduced to Bollywood) really enjoyed it, though.
What I liked:
The
movie is fast-paced.
Lots
of good shooting and blowing-things-up scenes.
It has
several conspiracy-y elements and layers. I love a good conspiracy.
Saif
was not contrived, which I feared he would be. He actually fit the role
pretty well.
Saif didn’t
have to dance! (Except in the end-credits song, which was hilarious.)
Music.
Was pretty decent.
Hilarious
moments. I love moments of levity in a movie of gravity.
What I didn’t like:
Plot
holes or just head-shaking moments — like how does this backpack-sized Soviet
bomb still exist and why is it just coming out now, 20 years later?
Foreign
locales are a must for spy films. But an endless stream of them (Morocco,
Russia, Latvia,
the U.K., South
Africa, Pakistan)
is just too much.
No
sexy cars. Take it from someone who knows Camaros (I own a 2002 SS): Even
the supposed Bumblebee Camaro in the movie poster is not that sexy. It’s
the 6-cylinder LT version — not an actual Bumblebee SS. Look for the
intake break in the hood that marks a Z28/SS or the SS grill emblem and
you won’t find either.
This
movie would not end. It could easily end about 75 percent of the
way through, if things were done properly. Instead it draaaaaaaaaaaaaags out.
For an
onscreen version of an actual engaged couple, there was very little
chemistry going on. I know I should never be surprised when there’s no
kiss in a Bollywood film, but with these two...really?
Kareena
was actually fairly flat <- amazing, I know. And her “Pakistani” accent
was pretty bad.
Spy
movies usually like to give us a bit of insight into the man behind the
spy. I don’t know that we ever even get the real name of “Agent Vinod.”
Though, yes, we do get a lovely moment in which he explains that after a
teenage experience where he saved lives by holding a rope for hours, he
has always had to live “in that place between life and death.”
Complete
lack of subtitles on the non-Hindi dialogue (dialogue in French,
Arabic and Russian was uncaptioned).
Other notes:
I can see why this movie was banned in Pakistan.
Other than Iram and a guy who gets killed, Pakistan
is pretty much all bad in this film. I’ve said before that considering the way India
treats Pakistan
in film is always fascinating.
Kareena is a terrible mujra dancer. Whether by design or not, I do not know.
I think for the first time ever, Saif was my favorite actor in a film. This is
a somewhat baffling thought. (I don’t dislike him by any means. See: his
brilliant performance in Omkara. He’s just...not my favorite, generally.)
Sum total, Agent Vinod was good enough in its genre but nothing spectacular.
