‘Masti’ (2004) started the trend of making adult comedies in India. It was the first mainstream sex comedy that found acceptance with the audience and the success of the film paved the way for several films which relied on adult jokes to evoke humour. While ‘Masti’ was a comic thriller with a fairly engaging storyline, ‘Grand Masti’, the second film in the franchise, did not have much of a story to boast of and was filled with humour inspired from SMS jokes and sexual innuendos. ‘Great Grand Masti’ is the third film in the franchise and seems to have blended horror and comedy while adhering to the tradition of incorporating adult humour.
Amar (Riteish Deshmukh), Prem (Aftab Shivdasani), and Meet (Vivek Oberoi) are not happy with their married life. Despite several attempts, they fail to establish any kind of physical proximity with their respective wives. Desperate to get some ‘action’ in their life, they head to Doodhwadi, a village where Amar’s ancestral house is in. They believe they will come across young and beautiful women in the village. When they reach the village, they are disappointed to see only elderly women around. After reaching Amar’s ancestral house, they meet Ragini (Urvashi Rautela), who introduces herself as a homeless girl and requests them to hire as help. The three men, enamored by Urvashi’s beauty, are more than happy to have her in the house.
A few of the numerous SMS jokes that have been presented visually in the film are mildly funny. Very few of them. But, you would not like to sit through a 135-minute long film that offers just about a few funny moments that make you laugh for a total duration of five minutes, would you? The juvenile script (story: Tushar Hiranandani; screenplay and dialogues: Aakash Kaushik and Madhur Sharma) gets no help from some absolutely pathetic direction. Director Indra Kumar seems to have taken a cue from the television shows produced by Ekta Kapoor (who also serves as co-producer on the film) and has made a film that adult humour weaved into a regressive plot that features characters who believe that if the wives observe ‘karva chauth’, their men would be saved from the rage of a ghost. If the juvenile script and the wretched direction fail to make you cringe, then the poor production values surely will. The film has some of the most poorly designed sets and some badly done VFX that one has seen in a mainstream film in the longest time.
Riteish Deshmukh possesses the talent to bring some spark into the dullest of scenes and his performance is like a bright spot in this film. Vivek Oberoi and Aftab Shivdasani pull off decent performances but are not as effortless as Deshmukh. Kudos to Urvashi Rautela for pulling off a role that requires her to indulge in several embarrassing things. Mishti Chakraborty, who played the titular/lead role in Subhash Ghai’s ‘Kaanchi’, has been saddled with a nondescript character. Shraddha Das and Puja Banerjee barely get any scope to perform. Sanjay Mishra is hilarious as Baba Antakshri.
Sex comedies can be fun if they are peppered with smartly written dialogues and are supported with a script that offers some entertainment. Last year’s ‘Hunterrr’ was a rather well-written and directed film that proved that the genre has tremendous potential. When films like ‘Masti’ and ‘Kya Kool Hain Hum’ arrived a decade back, they offered something new to the audience. But films filled with SMS jokes and silly sexual innuendos are passé. It is high time the genre is reinvented in the country.
Rating: 1.5/5
