The signs were there right at the time of Kamaal Dhamaal Malamaal and Bumm Bumm Bhole as well. The man who had delivered a series of comedy hits, Priyadarshan, had started losing his touch and one missed his trademark humor badly. In fact his rather serious films like Aakrosh and Rangrezz still carried good entertainment quotient and Khatta Meetha too had moments. However, he took a break from Bollywood and one hoped that his comeback affair Hungama 2 would bring in some humor.
Unfortunately, the tell tale signs were there in the promo itself. When it failed to bring in a solitary smile, leave aside generate excitement to catch the overall film, there was a scare factor there and then. Still, given the fact that at times (though rarely) it has happened that a film has turned out to be better than the promo, I checked out this overall two and a half hour long affair.
As it turned out though, my worst fears came true within first 15 minutes itself. Reason being that the whole introduction of characters is so confusing and utterly erratic. Who are these four kids in the house? Why does Ashutosh Rana have a problem with them around? What’s the problem with the big brother? Who is that younger sister? What’s that other son [Meezan Jaffrey] doing in the entire set up? Does he work at all? Who is Shilpa Shetty? Why does she call Ashutosh Rana ‘daddy ji’? What’s the whole deal with her husband Paresh Rawal?
To make matters further uninteresting comes Johnny Lever who is in a cameo but is a pale shadow of himself as he fails to generate laughter. Things get slightly better with Pranitha Subhash entering the proceedings. As a young woman with a baby in arms, there is a Jab Pyaar Kisi Se Hota Hai moment created for Meezan who is tagged as ‘bachche ke baap’. However, finally after getting one interesting scene, things go downhill again as you just can’t fathom why a family would go ahead with Pranitha’s demand and that for weeks in succession.
In the midst of this all, the entire Shilpa Shetty-Paresh Rawal track is so shoddily written that one can as well as the lady wondering why she chose to make a comeback with this film. On the other hand Meezan is hardly the ‘hero’ of the show as he is shown to have scant respect for women. Neither does he carry any love for Pranitha, nor does he behave with her right, and then doesn’t have any chemistry whatever with another woman he is about to get married to. Worst of it all, he even makes a real rape attempt at one juncture by saying that he is ‘pati’!
No wonder, you don’t carry any interest in why and what of the proceedings. While there is no ‘hungama’ created whatsoever, at least Rajpal Yadav tries but then his (re)entry into the scene is way too late into the proceedings. Also, on can see that there is a forced attempt to make things happen and unfortunately apart from him, no one even tries. Ditto towards the climax as well which stays on to be bizarre, hence bringing to close this late 80s/early 90s style film which would have possibly failed even then, had it seen a pan-India Hindi film.
One’s heart goes out to Pranitha as she has a ‘heroine like’ quality to her, which is also seen in one of the ‘dhinchaak’ songs which is forgettable but at least allows her to be glam. She emotes well too. Same can’t be said about Meezan though who looks, acts and talks like Ranbir Kapoor, though to 25% effect. Paresh Rawal is very annoying in one of his most uninspired act and Ashutosh Rana is seen in one of his lengthiest on-screen parts. None of the kids hold any screen presence and the one that you end up remembering a bit is Rajpal Yadav.
Technically though, the film looks good, courtesy eye catchy cinematography, while the art design is impressive as well (especially the club scenes which have a royal look to them). The sound design too is in Priyadarshan arena which shows that how his team is still trying. Unfortunately though, the film as a whole turns out to be a shockingly poor show and doesn’t work.