The third film in the Welcome series gathers so many actors together that you may need to make notes to keep track of who’s doing what. Ahmed Khan’s Welcome to the Jungle stars Akshay Kumar in the main surrounded by Suniel Shetty, Arshad Warsi, Paresh Rawal, Rajpal Yadav, Disha Patani, Jacqueline Fernandez and enough other names to fill an entire diary.
Tax-evading businessman Sahni (Zakir Hussain) is advised by his employee Dubey (Jonny Lever) to deliberately finance a flop movie to show a loss. Dubey goes about recruiting the worst technicians and actors he find.
These include the directing duo Dev (Rajpal Yadav) and Das (Paresh Rawal), the one-eyed cinematographer Nainsukh (Shreyas Talpade), flop actor Rajiv (Akshay Kumar), Sahni’s daughter Jenny (Jacqueline Fernandez) and Rajiv’s ex-girlfriend Nadia (Disha Patani). The buddy pairs thrown into the mix are the gangsters Romeo (Arshad Warsi) and Yeda (Suniel Shetty), Rangwa (Mukesh Tiwari) and Jagwa (Yashpal Sharma) and Rambo (Krushna Abhishek) and Jumbo (Kiku Sharda).
Daler, played by the singer Daler Mehndi, is an outlier, there for reasons that remain unknown to him and us and probably accounts for his permanently befuddled expression.
The menagerie, accompanied by Rajiv’s manager Benny (Tusshar Kapoor), turn up in a border village between India and Pakistan. After undergoing training by Teja (Lara Dutta), the group finally reach the shooting spot, only to run into the supposedly dreaded Zatara (Jackie Shroff) and his posse, who have been harassing the villagers.
New faces are being introduced well into the 164-minute film. At the village are the traitorous Abdullah (Aftab Shivadani), the long-suffering Zoya (Raveena Tandon), Murad (Kiran Kumar), who speaks in the kind of multisyllabic Urdu that Bollywood films like to spout, and Badi Bi (Farida Jalal), who talks gibberish.
Neeraj Vora’s story and screenplay is a non-stop hodgepodge with some clever in-jokes about Bollywood and more generalised digs at human stupidity. As can be expected from a film of this type, some of the humour lands while the rest depends on the generosity of audiences.
A comedy inspired by The Producers and Tropic Thunder, which itself is ripe for parody, cheerfully acknowledges its unending appetite for nonsensical scenes. The general air of forced-fed mayhem is captured by the only good line allotted to Shreyas Talpade’s unseeing cinematographer. Are you rolling, he’s asked. I think so, he says.
Dialogue writer Farhad Samji is paying a bit more attention than usual. Each of the numerous actors is given individual scenes that they can share with their grandkids someday. Even so, it’s difficult to keep track of who’s doing what. Some of the actors are visibly standing around with almost nothing to do apart from pick up a pay cheque.
Among the better running gags are Johnny Lever losing his voice when he gets too excited, the one-upmanship between Akshay Kumar and Suniel Shetty and Arshad Warsi at the other end, and the Murad-Badi Bi communication muddle.
Akshay Kumar exercises his privilege as one of the film’s co-producers and has far too many scenes to himself. Welcome to the Jungle tries to weave this hogging into the script, but the severely overstretched 164-minute movie isn’t that self-aware to carry it off.
You’ve read Scroll.
Now help sustain it
Scroll is funded by readers, not corporate owners. If you believe our work matters, support our newsroom. Become a member today!
We’re not driven by clicks or corporate interests – just honest, independent reporting. Keep us going. Support Scroll today!