Great Grand Masti movie review: A flat-out unamusing comedy

Cast: Riteish Deshmukh, Vivek Oberoi, Aftab Shivdasani, Sanjay Mishra
Director: Indra Kumar

 

Aided and prodded by the free-thinking permissiveness that the World Wide Web seems to have opened up, director Indra Kumar tries hard, yet another time, to cash in on — this time with disastrous results. Again! Stories of sex-starved men on the lookout for some fun have been a favourite subject of many adult film comedies. In many cases, such films have riotous unforgettable laughter, which under an able director and great piece of writing, become cult. Decidedly, scriptwriters almost turn a blind eye to any semblance of logic when conceiving a storyline that has to have ample doses of inane stuff — some funny, others most puerile.

Our film director, Indra Kumar too, (after his second failed attempt with Grand Masti in 2013) is obsessed with a wafer-thin plot about three young men who are not satisfied with conjugal bliss, and are forever saddled with uncompromising situations where they don’t seem to have enough — you guessed it right — sex! The film begins with the title song where three friends Amar (Ritesih Deshmukh), Meet (Vivek Oberoi) and Prem (Aftab Shivdasani) get married with Sapna, Rekha and Nisha. The three have been deprived of marital bliss (obviously, sex!) and so, are always looking for fun (masti). The story then shifts to troubles faced by the three, as they decide to have fun on the side when they visit a haunted haveli inhabited by the curvaceous and hot Raagini (Urvashi Rautela).

Sorry, if this reminds you of the first instalment, and the second… writers Madhur Sharma and Aakash Kaushik would not settle for any diversion here. Therefore, here too, the three men are oversexed libidinous deprived husbands: if Amar’s mother-in-law (Usha Nadkarni) dissuades her daughter from consummating her marriage because of a superstition, Meet’s wife’s twin brother — a muscular hunk — gets aroused every time the couple attempts to get intimate. Prem too, is invariably interrupted by his sister-in-law whenever his lustful advances prepare the couple for coitus. The only difference is the presence of three female leads: Pooja Bose, Mishti and Shraddha Das.

Director ties to infuse with a freewheeling sense of style, but as it turns out, it is an interminable, flat-out unwatchable piece of work, and follows a series of characters through their respective misadventures within a haunted haveli in a godforsaken place Doodhwadi where supposedly buxom women are aplenty. As the film progresses, his aimless modus operandi becomes an obvious impediment to one’s enjoyment of the film, as his obvious reliance on most unfunny lines in even more humourless situations results in a frustratingly meandering atmosphere that only grows more and more annoying.

Instead of taking viewers on a wild trip through wicked and mischievous state of affairs, the film’s ongoing problems are exacerbated by frequent emphasis on elements of childish jokes in the name of adult comedy. Deshmukh probably believes he could make the genre of comedy as his mainstay to last another innings, and, at the risk of repeating his stock expressions, looks bored stiff himself in some scenes. Both Shivdasani and Oberoi don’t have their youthful debonair looks any more, and seem to be making a last-ditch effort to somehow get noticed.

Great Grand Masti is a thoroughly irrelevant piece of work that often feels much, much longer than its absurdly inflated 127-minute running time, and it’s inevitably impossible not to wonder just what the producers (Ekta Kapoor, Sameer Nair, Aman Gill, Ashok Thakeria, Sri Adhikari Brothers, Anand Pandit) hoped to accomplish here. Whatever they set out to achieve, their cash registers would not be ringing for sure. Only former beauty pageant queen Rautela, playing a ghost, gets to sizzle in almost every scene that she appears in. Needless to add, this film’s rating of half a star is attributed to her curves!

The writer is a film critic and has been reviewing films for over 15 years. He also writes on music, art and culture, and other human interest stories.