Rating: 2/5
Hungama 2 is a romantic comedy film directed by Priyadarshan and produced by Ratan Jain, Ganesh Jain, Chetan Jain, and Armaan Ventures, which was released on Disney Plus Hotstar. It is a spiritual sequel to the 2003 film Hungama and is largely based on the director’s own 1994 Malayalam film Minnaram.
Story
Colonel Kapoor (Ashutosh Rana) is a retired jail superintendent who still wears the prison warden hat. Akash (Meezaan Jaaferi), his younger son, is slated to marry the daughter of his father’s best friend Bajaj (Manoj Joshi).
The wedding preps are thrown off-track as Vaani (Pranitha Subhash) arrives at the Kapoors’ doorstep with a toddler, saying that it is the kid of her college sweetheart Akash (Meezaan).
Akash declares his innocence and enlists the aid of Anjali (Shilpa Shetty), a family friend and coworker.
Radheshyam (Paresh Rawal), Anjali’s husband, misunderstands the situation and believes she is having an affair with Akash.
That is the loop in which Hungama 2 is stuck for the next two hours. Kapoor trusts the girl and puts the burden of proof on Akash to show that he did not go all out with Vaani during their college romance.
Performances
The hero of Hungama 2 is Ashutosh Rana, who plays a severe disciplinarian who alternates between being intimidating and amusing.
Meezaan and Pranitha Subhash are adequate, while Shilpa Shetty looks gorgeous and adds lots of energy to the Chura Ke Dil Mera remake, but she fails to make an impression on the rest of the cast.
Paresh Rawal and Rajpal Yadav, two of Priyadarshan’s frequent partners, provide some laughs, but they are too dispersed.
The appearance of Akshaye Khanna appears to have been crammed into the film for nostalgia’s sake.
Positives
Hungama 2 has all of the elements of a comedy in place: characters stumbling and faltering as they try to get things in order, but only, they’re all torn at the edges.
The film has witnessed a remarkable generational shift. Akash seeks to entrap Vaani with a tape recorder in the year 2021, the year of future smartphones. Meanwhile, she refers to herself as his ardhangini (wife) just because he is the alleged father of her kid.
Negatives
Hungama 2 misses the point for director Priyadarshan, who is known for his witty comedy.
While there are a few laugh-out-loud moments, the film’s finale is a wet squib. Not only are discoveries crammed into the last act, but they also travel into terrain that contradicts all that has been established in previous acts.
It’s enough to remark that the movie isn’t well-timed. The actors pour everything into the mix, from outright buffoonery and hamming on one end to romance and emotions on the other.
The clumsy comedy is based on an idea that no longer holds water: when a picture lacks content, fill it with bizarre characters and bizarre subplots to keep things interesting. Nothing is worse than a comedy that is in desperate need of a laugh.
Worth It?
Hungama 2 is an uninviting mix of tired clichés that fails to impress not just Shilpa Shetty, who is making her acting comeback after more than a decade, but also Priyadarshan, who is making his Bollywood comeback after eight years.
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