Rating : 2.25 stars out of 5 (a hair's breadth away from 'ordinary')

Directors : Sajid-Farhad

Hindi , 2016 (English subtitles available)

Star-studded comedies like Housefull 3 , I regret to say, are critic-proof. No matter what the critics say, audiences will flock to theatres expecting their dose of masala, cotton candy, nitrous oxide and Khudaa jaane what else. But laughter even in small quantities is good for health and even critics need to look after their health and so it is that I went to see 'Housefull 3' is for health reasons.
Admittedly I laughed many times, but those instances were outweighed by a bigger number of mediocre sequences, weak jokes and cringe-worthy situations. Writers of mainstream Hindi cinema, shackled by dim-witted producers, are perfectly capable of penning hilarious lines, but struggle mightily in constructing consistently funny storylines.

The basic plot is actually geared for ripe comedy. Batook Patel is a big-shot London businessman who has a decent bank account - 50 billion pounds to be precise- and lives with his three darling daughters in a Disneyland modern castle. The three young attractive ladies seem destined for an army of suitors but Patel cites his traumatic past and bars them all strictly from the perils of matrimony. To circumvent his draconian diktats, his bitiyas surprise Pitaaji with three bridegrooms - one is blind, another is mute while the third is lame.

Three beautiful and glamorous actresses - Jacqueline Fernandes, Lisa Hayden and Nargis Fakhri (we are gloriously secular when it comes to filmy beauties) round up the troika of daughters but only Jacqueline enhances those gorgeous-princess looks with a brightly breezy turn.

Among all the current crop of experienced actors who have perpetrated their hero-giri mostly in second-class movies , Akshay Kumar is the first-ranker. Excelling in his gags, crackling with wicked energy and armed with all the best lines, his is the film's best act.. Witness his narration of an incident at a dinner table where a toy train delivers 'naans' - the story he tells is not very funny but the sobbing dramatic loony elan with which he nails it, had me in splits.

Ritesh Deshmukh is in his default-mode - getting pass grades in comedies where there are two other heroes. Even less impressive is Abhishek Bachchan who caricatures himself with gratuitous references to Amitabh Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai, which flatter them but not him. I find Boman Irani to be a much superior actor in serious movies (as in 'My Wife's Murder') than the comic roles which audiences in general, like him more for.

Double standards afflict the film's race-based takes. A soccer selector yells "Indians are only fit to remain slaves" and ignores Akshay's fantabulous football strikes. Later we see that the three female maids in the Patel palace are all of African ancestry. Granted that there are lots of African descendants living in England but the film-makers seem to have conveniently assumed the film to be set in Uganda, not U.K while casting those roles. Or did casting white ladies as maids pose the danger of deflecting attention from the pic's three Indian beauties for an audience which is often assumed to be skin-colour-sensitive?

Housefull 3 is at its best when it brainstorms to unleash the shenanigans of its three handicapped heroes. While taking care not to make fun of the disabled, the film's dialogues and slapstick humour are at their broadly funny peak when it focuses on their fabricated histories and others' attempts to expose their pretense. Writer-directors Sajid-Farhad do not similarly succeed on the storyline's other tracks.

This is a technically solid movie with first-class cinematography and crisp editing. The best asset of the songs is that they don't grate on your nerves.

It doesn't take a 'trade pundit' to figure out that Housefull 3 will mint millions at the box office, and yes, it sure does sport some hilarious moments but more consistency in smart scripting would have elevated this occasionally funny movie into a truly memorable one.