Housefull 5 has a dhamaal first half. The jokes are a bit below-the-belt and adult. But it is well-woven into the narrative and has been performed ably, especially by Akshay Kumar. Moreover, one hasn’t seen something of this kind in a long time and as a result, the humour overall works big time. This time, there’s also a murder mystery element and it is unpredictable. The various homages to the previous parts of Housefull make for a great watch too. On the flipside, after a rocking first half, the humour dips drastically post-interval. This impacts the film big time. A few scenes had no relevance and using Chat GPT-type images for a scene is a bad idea. Moreover, some of the actors have got a raw deal. Akshay Kumar, however, rocks the show. He proves yet again that no one can beat him when it comes to comedy in today’s times. Riteish Deshmukh is the next best and is very entertaining. Abhishek Bachchan gets to play a quirky character but sadly, gets a bit dominated by the rest of the cast. Jacqueline Fernandez, Sonam Bajwa, Nargis Fakhri, Soundarya Sharma and Chitrangda Singh are entertaining and add to the glamour quotient. Sanjay Dutt and Jackie Shroff are lovely but are let down by the writing. Nana Patekar has a small role but is damn good. Fardeen Khan and Dino Morea lend able support. Shreyas Talpade is sadly wasted. Chunky Pandey, Ranjeet and Johny Lever are funny while Nikitin Dheer and Akashdeep Sabir are fair. All in all, Housefull 5 is a decent one-time watch killer comedy. (P.S.: There are two versions of the film, Housefull 5A and Housefull 5B, and both have different endings. The suspense in both films is difficult to guess and hence, one can watch whichever version they wish to. However, 5B slightly has an edge when it comes to unpredictability).
My rating – *** out of 5!