There is this lengthy sequence towards the closure of this clever chaotic comedy where the hammy actor Rajeev, played by a riotous Akshay Kumar, tries to entertain the Gabbar impersonating villain to get him off his high horse… literally! I mean, there is a villain on a horse, and Rajeev, the flop hero whom we first meet gyrating to a Bhojpuri item song, tries to coax him to stop terrorizing a bunch of semi-idiotic villagers at the Kashmir border who look like they could do with some entertainment, AK style.
Sholay spoofed? You got it! Akshay Kumar is in super form as a flop hero trying to make a comeback in a film designed to be a flop. There is a marked tendency among critics to mock mirth when it is dumbed down. But to make a movie with some really dim-witted characters, who ideally belong to a zoo, trying to shoot a film designed to flop, takes more intelligence than we are willing to grant .
Director Ahmed Khan and his writer Farhad Samji are in the mood for frolic and fun. It is like an infectious disease, the goofier the going gets, the more the girls wriggle, the more we giggle. Surrendering to the silliness is the only option. Khan and Samji leave us with no choice. The vast cast of semi-retarded revellers lead us into a trajectory of mounting absurdities that somehow survive the toppling over the brink.
To begin with, there is a rich industrialist (Zakir Hussain) who wants to make a flop film to justify his accounts. His blonde bombshell bimbo of a daughter (Jacqueline Fernandez never had so much fun being ditzy) is assigned to produce the flop film, with a flop hero and a duo of flop directors who call themselves Dev and Das.
That Dev and Das are played by Rajpal Yadav and Paresh Rawail is a stroke of luck. They can make the pursuit of failure look like fun. Later, much later, after tons of water has flown under the bilge (and poor Lara Dutta, she comes and goes without a blink), the scene of grime shifts to a village at the Indo-Pak border being terrorized by a Gabbar fan named Zatara (Jackie Shroff), who looks bemused by his own ‘intimidatingness’.
Raveena Tandon shows up as a spunky, saucy victim of villainy, looking like anything but a victim. After Raveena’s fiery speech on nari shakti, Disha Patni, playing the heroine of the ‘flop’ film within the (hopefully hit) film, whispers to Jacqueline, “If she continues to give such speeches we don’t stand a chance.”
Copy that. The bimbo factor is never made a pretext for the camera (Kabir Lal, in the party mood) to caress the contours of the ladies. This is one of those rare slapsticks which averts innuendos, like those fake bullets that fly across the frame hitting none except one (no spoiler ahead).
The film’s writing is sharper, wittier than what we normally see in such comedies. Vindoo Dara Singh, playing Samba to Gabbar, is called out as ‘Dara Singh Ke Aulad’. At one point, when the ladies are up to some mischief, the song ‘Kaanta laga’ plays concurrently in two versions: Lataji’s original for Farida Jalal and a remix for the two young ladies.
Speaking of the songs, they stretch the length of the storytelling to more than welcome. At mid-point, Akshay Kumar speaks directly to inform us they will show us a song with Disha Patani and Akshay as they shot it and didn’t know where to fit it in.
Making a mindless comedy is not child’s play. It’s a lot more difficult than making mindful movies triggered by murky mayhem. Welcome To The Jungle is much more on-the-ball than it was expected to be. Not all the intended laughter hits target. But there’s enough to smile over, even if you don’t want to be caught doing so.
