Entertainment
Year: 2014
Director: Sajid-Farhad
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Tamannah, Krishna, Mithun Chakraborty, Johnny Lever, Prakash Raj, Sonu Sood
 

When I first saw the trailer of this movie, I thought – “Oh, sure it looks like yet another Sajid Khan no-brainer!” But then I got confused because the titles mentioned the director’s name as Sajid-Farhad. My first thought was that post-Himmatwala/Humshakals double debacle Sajid Khan was perhaps too afraid to lend his solo name to the film and was teaming up with someone! But that was not the case.

A tabloid interview of Sajid Samji and Farhad Samji then cleared my vision. These directors of Entertainment are brothers in real life and they have nothing to do with Sajid Khan, apart from being the writers of his Housefull 2! They have even written ‘gems’ like Golmaal Returns and Ready. So with this background info, I went in better prepared to handle their on-screen onslaught of ‘entertainment’!

What’s the plot?

When the hero- a struggling actor (Akshay Kumar) asks his lady-love’s (Tamanna) hand in marriage, her money-minded father (Mithun Chakraborty) refuses. But then the good fortune smiles and the hero comes to know that he is the lost son of a recently deceased Bangkok-based billionaire. When he comes to Bangkok to stake his claim to the riches, the family lawyer (Johnny Lever) informs that his late father has left all his money in his faithful dog- Entertainment! Now the disappointed hero and his none-too-bright friend (Krishna) try their best to kill off the dog, in order to get back the inheritance.  Unknown to them, the late billionaire’s criminal-minded cousins (Prakash Raj and Sonu Sood) are also plotting to get the inheritance by knocking everyone off their way!

What’s hot?

·        Akshay Kumar manages to hold fort (if only barely!) despite everything (including his weird receding hair-style and ageing looks!) going wrong everywhere!

·        Prakash Raj and Sonu Sood enjoy themselves as silly villains.

·        Sajid-Farhad’s directorial debut is promising for lovers of the crass and crude comedy. They overdo the stuff in the beginning but then find their bearing to dish out a good number of chuckles.

·        Some catchy song-and-dance sequences.

What’s not?

·        Wafer-thin plot.

·        The comic potential of the dog-angle could have been more intelligently exploited.

·        The gags are unoriginal; dialogues corny and the word-play terrible.

·        Wholesale overacting from everyone. Tamannah, Krishna and Mithun are almost intolerable. But that almost seems like a grand plan to woo the masses.

Verdict

Akshay Kumar’s year 2014 becomes better. Entertainment has already been declared a hit!

Silly is successful. So what if a certain section of the audience may never acknowledge or accept that? The rocking box-office figures of this film go to reaffirm the fact that the Indian Janata has no qualms about leaving the brain outside the theatre and finding mirth in below-the-belt humor!

Rating

2 stars