Hungama 2: Stone-Age Humour

Hungama 2: Stone-Age Humour

Hungama 2 (Disney-Hotstar)

Rating: **

Hungama 2 is  the  kind of, ha ha, comedy where  we are supposed to laugh at  a line like, “Iss  Gehna ko lekar  nikal Behna”  and where  the family cook  runs around  the house with a wooden  ladle  to remind us  of his purpose  in  the plot.

The ladle is  the   most wooden thing you see in  Hungama 2. The actors are  required to be  the opposite of wooden. They are all expected  to overact in every frame .Watching poor  Rajpal Yadav OD-ing  on verbal  diarrhea  in a comic sequence specially written for  him I feared for his  heart. Rajpal pulls out all  stops—I could  just  imagine  Priyan  screaming from behind  the camera, ‘Aur acting , aur  acting’—until I feared  Rajpal looks like he is having a   stroke.

This is  a film, Hungama 2,  where every  character is constantly hyper  about everything under the sun, from short  skirts  to long  relationships, the former leading to a traffic snarl  and  the latter  to  a  baby. Such is life in a Priyadarshan  film.  Tough, ticklish,  turbulent….Paresh Rawal plays Tiwari  the  harried   husband  of  a hot-and-sex woman.

Hot  and  sexy bole toh, Shilpa Shetty who has nothing  much to do except….ummm…look  hot and sexy and  occasionally roll  her eyes at her insufferable  husband who suspects every man from age  8  to 80 to lusting after his wife.At the climax she even slaps  the obnoxious husband. Why does she bear  with  him? Why doesn’t she  just walk out? These are questions we ask ourselves as  the gags  go from vaguely annoying to downright disgusting.

[tnm_video layout=”mnmd-post-media-wide”]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC8dHEENNHQ[/tnm_video]

The  jokes are  sillier than kindergarten  humour. Sample this: Radheshyam stops  at a  traffic light where  an old man stares at  his wife. Radheshyam loses the plot.Turns out the  man staring at  his wife is blind.Radheshayam’s spousal neurosis  is amusing only to a point beyond, after which it becomes  an  exercise  in  tedium.

The main plot is about a young heir Akaash(Meezan Jaffrey) who is  called ‘Akku’ only by  the  hot-and-sexy Shilpa Shetty,  facing a paternity claim when his former  girlfriend Vaani(Pranitha Subhash, doing a poor  man’s Hema Malini) lands up at his  doorstep with a  baby.The situation generated  some laughter  50 years ago when  in  Ek Nari Ek Bramhachari  where Mumtaz  muscled  into Jeetendra’s home  claiming  he was  the father  of her child.

In 2021 the paternity  gimmick  seems  outdated. Have these people  not  heard  of a  DNA test? They have they have!  But  the test, you see, is proven  inconclusive  by  the family’s cook who  whips  up some  cock and bull about  a vague doctor,his  fuzzy report …Doctors, cops  and   other  professionals have no business in Priyadarshan’s universe.  Oh yes, there is  a filmmaker  in the film, played  by Akshaye Khanna(making an unimpressive guest appearance) . Akshaye is  shooting a film called  Judge Bhi  Kabhi Chor Tha.Hopefully that won’t be the title  of Priyan’s  next  comedy.

Man  lives on hope. But Hungama 2  doesn’t provide much to be  hopeful about. It is  largely stilted in  its  plotting and  vapid in execution. The  film is formatted  in  large episodic chunks, the first  20 minutes   shamelessly  ripped  off from Gulzar’s Parichay with  four young brats driving their teacher Johnny Lever(yes, he’s also in this) nuts. Another 20 minutes has  to do with an  engagement ceremony in a temple where Akaash must avoid  being seen  by  Vani getting betrothed  to Manoj Joshi’s daughter .

Yes,  the old Priyan  favourite Joshi is also in this. They  are all in it, accomplices in a  conspiracy to   fool us  into believing we are amused  by the  proceedings. But the  jokes fall flat. The  humur is  undone. The witticism withers into a  deadend  in no time at all. By the time  Meezan and Shilpa  hit the dancefloor with Chura ke  dil mera(push-button nostalgia at it most pushy) , the  comedy has lost its plot .

Every character  says the dialogues as  though someone  was  prompting them  from behind the camera. Poor Meezan Jaffrey. He  deserves better. So do we.