Welcome Back – A Review

What do I say? Where do I start? Will I finish writing about this movie? All these questions came to my mind when I decided to do a review for this movie. Then I mustered courage and started this laborious task of writing a review for this movie. There is no comparison whatsoever between Welcome and Welcome Back in terms of the Plot/Story (is one there?), Making, Star cast and most importantly direction.

PLOT

The story revolves around the same Majnubhai (Anil Kapoor) and Uday Shetty (Nana Patekar) who have reformed and given up the underworld activities. Uday Setty’s father Shankar Shetty( Nana Patekar again) comes up with another daughter this time from his third marriage and hands over Ranjana Shetty (Shruti Hasan) to Uday Shetty and asks him to get her married off. On the other hand Dr. Ghungroo (Paresh Rawal) learns that his wife(Supriya Karnik) has a Son before marriage and agrees to get him home. When he goes to meet his step son, he is shocked to see that he too is goon known as Ajju Bhai (John Abraham). Ajju and Ranjana fall in love, but because of the ego of the two families, they are deprived of coming together for a while. To add more spice to the plot Dimple Kapadia and Shruti Maggo are in the plot too. Then there is a Blind don Wanted Bhai(Naseeruddin Shah) and his drug addict son Honey (Shiney Ahuja) who add more confusion to the story. Eventually all confusions are cleared like the original “Welcome”.

 Cast

Anil Kapoor, Nana Patekar, John Abraham, Shruti Hasan, Paresh Rawal, Naseeruddin Shah, Dimple Kapadia.

Production

The movie is produced by Foroze Nadiadwala and Ashok Mundra, directed by Anees Bazmee and cinematography by Kabeer Lal It has been distributed by Eros International on 4^thSeptember 2015 and has a run-time of 152 minutes. It was budgeted and completed in approximately 88 Crores mostly shot in Dubai, FilmCity Mumbai.

 Review

My senior, Bhavna Somaiya has already spoken at length about the film and I don’t have a second opinion. This film should be seen keeping the human brain in a fridge at home. This I say because, the director Anees Bazmee too has done the same while directing this movie. Just because Welcome was a huge success he presumed that the sequel would do well. He did succeed partially because people who loved “Welcome” did go to see the movie over the weekend, but realizing their mistake and the sheer nonsense happening in the theatre, they may get scared at the thought of going to a movie again for a while.

The story has no meaning to start with. So many characterless characters in one movie is not acceptable. The old Shankar Shetty has no guilt, that he has just now disclosed about his third marriage to his already aged son and goes off happily murmuring that he is free to do another marriage.On the other hand Dr.Ghungroos wife convinces him that he should accept her son whose whereabouts she had successfully hidden, her entire life. The characters of Dimple Kapadia and her daughter are on a boyfriend/husband changing spree.

The plot has no sense and just to show the connect with “Welcome”, some shots have been put in for no reason. Excess steroids are showing its effects on John and his over bulky body does not cope up with simple dance steps now. He appears an oversized Hulk good enough only for action scenes. Shruti does not know what to do in the movie and has lamely tried to copy what Katrina did in “Welcome”. A good actor like Paresh Rawal has been wasted. He could have pulled the comedy angle better. Only Anil Kapoor and Nana Patekar shine in the movie with their quick ones, but that is just not enough to lift the film. The first half puts you to sleep and the second half post interval gives you so much of the sound and unwanted shocks that you start looking for Anees Bazmee in the audience to take out the frustration. The last shot is unbelievable where the entire cast flies in a desert storm like paper pieces (just to copy the opening shot of Welcome where Akshay, Paresh and Supriya fly off a car)

Lot of money could have been saved. The shoot was not needed in Dubai in the first place. The emirates palace –AbuDhabi has been used in most parts. For the song sequence an exact replica was created in FilmCity when the producers realized they had gone overbudget I guess. Meydan hotel, Jumeirah Zabeel Saray hotel, Waldorf Astoria Dubai Palm Jumeirah, The sofitel Hotel- The Palm, Grand Hyatt Hotel, Rixos – Palm Dubai and the Burj Khalifa have been chosen as locations to shoot. The last Margham desert shot of just 2 minutes has been shot with 1000 camels, choppers and Hummers. Limited edition cars like the Ferrari Spider, Aston Martin One-77, Rolls Royce Phantom and the Mansory Carbonado Apertos have been used to show off wealth not needed by the script at all. I say all this because I have been to Dubai and so much glitter is definitely not there outside the royal family. Using too many music composers leaves you clueless as to what is happening.

Verdict

Released on more than 3000 screens all over, This is a “semi-HIT” and will cross 100 Crores collection mark overall. The reason being a sequel, I am sure many people would want to watch it out of curiosity. The movie could have collected more had it not been better star cast, bankable stars, good script and definitely better direction. This over-plotted, overlong movie can be watched if you leave your brains home in the fridge so that when you get back, you don’t get angry at your own stupidity but rather laugh it out while fitting back your sane brain. I rate this Film 2.5 / 5.0.

(Movie Trailer Source:EROS NOW)

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