Sheer Silliness but Who’s Complaining?

Never mind how Housefull 3 ends up performing at the box- office when it opens this weekend, it’s already the smartest ‘virally promoted’ movie in recent memory. Let’s face it, nobody’s expecting anything but sheer silliness from this third installment in the nonsensical comedy franchise. And the film’s stars have been reiterating just that through their amusing shenanigans during promotions.

All it takes is a quick glance at any of the actors’ social media feeds—particularly Akshay Kumar’s—to understand the extent of tomfoolery that has gone on in the days leading up to the release. For one, the mock rivalry between leading ladies Jacqueline Fernandez and Lisa Haydon has yielded some hilarious videos. The two actresses sportingly lived out the popular ‘heroines-don’t-get-along’ cliché by filming short clips in which they’ve bickered like babies. There’s one in which they fight each other to be the first to board a private jet, another in which they’re roughing each other up for control of a mike at a public event, and the third—my favourite—in which they seem to be out-racing each other to finish a meal on board a flight. Not to be left behind, the boys—Akshay, Abhishek Bachchan and Riteish Deshmukh—have created ‘lasting memories’ of their own, including a video in which they bark (yes!) in sync to a popular show-tune, and another in which they mime to a golden oldie film song playing on the system while carpooling together. A ‘face-swap’ video between Akshay and Jacqueline was creepy to say the least, but fans appear to be loving the innovations.

If the film is half as funny as these videos (previous instalments of the franchise have taught us not to raise our hopes), you can bet they’ll put Housefull 4 into production within the year.

The Show Stealer

Arjun Rampal’s been looking to do a good action movie, so it turned out well for him that Sujoy Ghosh decided to cast him in Kahaani 2. Arjun reportedly plays a tough cop alongside Vidya Balan, but according to sources from the set, he injured himself on his very first day filming an action scene. He bust his knee while doing what catty unitwalas say was a “simple jump”. While they won’t vouch for his personal fitness, word from the set is that Arjun’s done a respectable job in the film, thereby surprising the crew who’d been sniggering after Sujoy cast him in a role that was originally written for Irrfan Khan. The bulk of the praise though is reserved for their leading lady, who insiders say is terrific in the film.

It’s been a roller-coaster professional journey for Vidya and Sujoy, who hit bulls-eye together with Kahaani in 2012, then famously fell out after the actress left the director’s next project, literally weeks away before filming started. All’s well that end’s well, though. Not only did she happily take the lead in that film’s sequel (although one hears Deepika Padukone was definitely interested), she also agreed to make a special appearance in the Amitabh Bachchan-Nawazuddin Siddiqui thriller Teen that Sujoy recently produced.

The Fallen Hero of His Flop Show

He became the butt of jokes when he announced that he was casting himself as the lead in his new film, and when the trailer came out a few months ago, the sniggering among his industry friends only got louder. He ignored the jibes at the time, but industry insiders are saying this long-time filmwala is now openly ruing the day he decided to go in front of the camera. The project—hardly made on a shoe-string budget, given that it’s almost entirely filmed overseas—remains unreleased nearly two years since it was completed. Plus financiers are reportedly insisting on seeing returns on their investment. The poor guy, who’s had a decent track record with previous projects, doesn’t know what to do since it’s out of his hands—nobody wants to buy the damn movie.

About The Author

Rajeev Masand

•