Housefull 5 confirms the old saying that Hollywood may get bored, but Bollywood knows no such luxury. Sajid Nadiadwala and Tarun Mansukhani serve up two nearly identical films and slap different names on the posters: Housefull 5A and 5B. You could almost call it twin chaos, except the siblings squabble over their own endings.
Picture a floating palace rather than a sunken plot. Ranjeet the billionaire leaves a video will, hints at Jolly as heir, and suddenly three claimants sample the cruise buffet with big ideas and small brains. A murder erupts, six suspicious cuts of luggage take the fall, and the joke is that nobody stops stealing another punch line even while a body turns up.
Both cuts walk you through the same sight gags, one-liners, and runaway luggage trolleys until the last twenty minutes. After that, Housefull 5A points an accusatory finger at Mr. X, while Housefull 5B swivels and names Ms. Y instead. Surprise keeps its passport up to date.
The team behind Housefull 5 claims their goal is simple: give moviegoers something so offbeat they’ll want to watch it again and again-a gamble that, by mainstream Indian standards, is almost unheard of.
Headlining the cast are heavyweights such as Sanjay Dutt, Nana Patekar, Jackie Shroff, and Johnny Lever, alongside younger names like Fardeen Khan, Dino Morea, Shreyas Talpade, and the always-charismatic Akshay Kumar. Critics, however, were quick to complain that many of these big talents vanish inside roles scribbled in a paragraph or two, leaving senior actors especially feeling like glorified cameos.
Comedy here skids almost exclusively toward slapstick masks misunderstandings, and puns so broad you could trip over them, yet subtlety never shows up.
A scene with a squawking parrot and a bickering monkey pushes that absurdity further than some viewers were willing to go, while running gags about body parts land with a thud some call crude, others downright tasteless. The screenplay, by several accounts, resembles a mad dash where every punch line springs from a pratfall or a groan-worthy pun, giving clever bits no chance to breathe.
The audience reaction, oddly enough, was mostly forgiving. Fans hailed Housefull 5A as a mad ride packed with shocks, belly laughs, and yes, that unforgettable parrot bit that will probably end up on Instagram the next morning. Repeat watchers of the series, many of whom already know the punch lines by heart, cheered the film for the same high-octane silliness that first hooked them years ago.
Housefull 5B drew almost identical praise, with one multiplex visitor declaring it a laugh riot, pure madness, and just the right amount of masala, punctuated by Akshay Kumar’s entrance that critics labeled the film’s official welcome-home moment.
People who stack up laughter tracks in their living rooms seem to love the way the actors bounce off one another. Some reviewers even call it the cinematic equivalent of a friends-at-the-pub vibe that refuses to quit.
Still, the more hardened critics label the outing an endurance test. To them, what the filmmakers label absurdity really plays like leftovers-same punchlines, same pratfalls, and very little breeze of surprise. The murder-mystery thread drapes itself clumsily over the plot, so specialists in that form will spot the culprit a mile away.
Behind the camera, budgets clearly stretched to the limit: the sets gleam and the angles mostly stay sharp. None of it stops the first hour from creeping along like a flat tire, though, because the screenplay seems to have taken an early lunch. Backing tracks drift into the mix and vanish with a shrug, while one or two songs clatter into scenes as if the editor forgot to hit mute. That kind of clipping kills rhythm faster than any bad punchline.
Two cuts of Housefull 5 share one major reveal at the climax-a different murderer each time, sure, yet the moment lands with the subtlety of a drum roll nobody heard. Even devoted whodunit fans will probably fold their arms and huff by that juncture.
A slapstick scale from 1 to 10 tips firmly into the 9 zone: think body tumbles, toilet jokes, and voices dialed up to a fever pitch all the way through. You could trot out a lineup of star names, yet those big silhouettes barely leave a mark. Most players slot into loud caricatures, so only a few faint echoes of real character work shine through.
People who savor the crudest sort of humor roar like seals at feeding time, while anyone with half a taste for restraint heads for the lobby halfway through.
Production money runs high, pacing runs low, and the music ends up rattling about like an afterthought. That uneven execution keeps perky camera work from earning its keep.
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Both edits of Housefull 5 boil down to a three-ring circus that never quite decides which ring to focus on. Fans of chaos may still dive in head first; everyone else might want to read the plot synopsis and save themselves the racket.
Two endings in the same cut keeps things fresh on paper, yet the script keeps circling back to old punch lines and lowbrow shocks, so newcomers may shrug before the credits. People who sniff at nuance or half-decent plotting should probably hit the pause button right now. Fans who love the roaring, anything-goes chaos and aren’t afraid to turn their brains down to zero will find, no matter which finale lands first, the madness shows no signs of slowing.
Written by; Pranjal Bapna