The third in the successful comedy series, Welcome To The Jungle, tries to have large scale production and ensemble cast entertain the audiences, but fails it does to deliver a prime-time theatrical experience. It has a number of popular actors but the film is depending on the faces of Akshay Kumar and Johny Lever to maintain the comedy.
The film Welcome To The Jungle, helmed by Ahmed Khan, stars a great cast of characters and starts off with an interesting premise, penned by ‘late Neeraj Vora’. It’s about a corrupt businessman that sets out to invest in a movie that is bound to bomb at the movies, in the midst of a money laundering operation. The plot is full of great potential for biting comedy about films themselves, but over the course of the movie, the script slowly turns into vignettes of pure comedy and formulaic gags.
Both Akshay Kumar, as a film star and Johny Lever, whose comic timing is beyond question, give a powerful performance. The chemistry and improvisation give some of the film’s best moments – they help to make up for the flaky script at times. Other stars such as Paresh Rawal, Rajpal Yadav, Suniel Shetty, Arshad Warsi, Disha Patani, Jacqueline Fernandez, Jackie Shroff, Farida Jalal and Kiran Kumar lend some weight to the film’s star-studded appeal.
The second half takes us to a fictional village in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir, where the plot becomes much more crazy. The scene/setting is well overused with over-the-top action sequences and the fades to green screen reduce the impact.
Though there are a lot of failings, there are some moments of self deprecating humour and social commentary that work well; Farida Jalal and Kiran Kumar are the pair that does this the best here. But, lack of consistency and a long runtime here fail to maximize on the good idea and leave one with a sub-par comedy.