Welcome To The Jungle Review: Akshay Kumar Anchors This Unapologetic, Meta Madness; Farida Jalal Stands Out

Welcome To The Jungle Movie Review: Remember Airplane, Disaster Movie and This Is The End? Hollywood has toyed with parodies and spoofs for decades. In Bollywood, what we get are self-aware tropes woven into mainstream comedies. And the latest to join the ranks of Quick Gun Murugun, Dhoondte Reh Jaoge and Phone Bhoot is Welcome To The Jungle.

The idea alone is what makes it, well, different. Taking the reins from Anees Bazmee is Ahmed Khan, who remains unapologetic about the tone of his film right from the word go. “Welcome welcome welcome, yaani teen baar welcome. Yeh hai Welcome 3,” announces a character in the first scene. Over the next 2 hours 45 minutes, the title of the film gets repeated in public service, lest you forget!

The film revolves

around a business tycoon, a Vijay Mallya lookalike, who decides to evade his tax-related crimes by putting together a Rs 2000 crore film. The catch? It should bomb upon release. His secretary Dubey and blonde daughter Jenny approaches flop director duo Dev and Das and visually challenged DoP Nayansukh to helm this film by bringing together a bunch of flop actors.

They rope in Rajiv, a has-been Bollywood star, who now works in Bhojpuri films. Jenny is set to play the female protagonist along with Nadia, Rajiv’s former lover superstar. Dev and Das are also forced to sign mafia dons Romeo and Anna (Uday Shetty and Majnu’s brothers) to avoid paying back the Rs 2.5 lakh they owe them. Two television stars, a Punjabi singer and two side characters also sign the film.

In a strange turn of events, these actors get caught up in a dangerous situation in Azadganj in PoK, which is often frequented by Mujahideen leader Zatara. In an even stranger climax sequence, they’re required to take on the roles of real army officials and fight Zatara and his gang to protect the village that’s filled with quirky characters, most of who speak unintelligibly.

Penned by late Neeraj Vora, Welcome To The Jungle stands out for its many meta jokes. In one of the funniest scenes, we see an emotional Zoya (played by Raveena Tandon), a resident of Azadganj, responsible for imparting the film its melodramatic quotient, telling Akshay Kumar’s Rajiv, ‘Kahan the tum bees saal se?’ On paper, it’s just another line in the screenplay.

But it plays more like a deliciously meta nod to their off-screen past, a reminder that after years, the two former lovers have found themselves sharing the frame in a film again. Akshay’s character being christened Rajiv in itself is a sly wink at his real name, Rajiv Hari Om Bhatia. In another scene, a character declares that Jacqueline Fernandes’ Jenny is present only to up the glamour quotient.

At yet another point, the first glimpse of Vindu Dara Singh’s character evokes a reaction, ‘Apne aap ko Dara Singh ka aulaat samajhta hai kya?’ These real-life references will make you crack up every now and then. And then comes the one-liners. No, they aren’t the cleverest ones. They appear more like WhatsApp dad jokes but the situation they’re hurled in keep the laughs coming.

This is a film that doesn’t make lofty promises. But what’s lofty is its scale. It’s peppered with vibrant visuals, expansive locations and lavish production design. Rather than holding back, it fully embraces its over-the-top comic universe, turning absurdity into one of its strengths. Ahmed’s vision of putting together a star-studded ensemble deserves a mention too.

However, Welcome To The Jungle comes with its own shortcomings. At 165 minutes, the film often starts testing your patience, particularly in the second half. Even though comedy continues to remain the heart of it, it gives way to action introducing a bunch of more characters. And it is this genre-blend that starts disrupting the pacing.

Welcome To The Jungle is chaotic, incoherent and sometimes, you also end up feeling that there’s no method to this madness. It’s loud, ludicrous and rattling, reminding you of the slapstick humour we frequently watched in the 1990s and the 2000s. But it’s this nostalgia and utter pandemonium that form the crux of this caper. It further believes in its CGI gorilla, nudging you to give in to its folly.

Akshay leads the film effortlessly, bringing his trademark comic timing and anchoring the madness with a performance that’s all about excess. He’s clearly in his comfort zone. And if you thought Welcome To The Jungle has enough characters and more, enters Akshay 2.0. Yes, after Bhooth Bangla, he whips up a double role yet again.

His banter with the likes of Suniel Shetty (Anna), Paresh Rawal (Das) and Rajpal Yadav (Dev) is sure to evoke a chuckle or two and fortunately or unfortunately, he seems to be in better sync with and share a better chemistry with them as opposed to Disha Patani, who plays Nadia. There’s an awkwardness in his scenes with Raveena and you would find yourself rooting for them.

As for the rest of the cast, Jacqueline, Disha, Lara Dutta, Aftab Shivdasani, Tusshar Kapoor and Daler Mehndi get the shorter end of the stick. But it is Farida Jalal and Kiran Kumar, who surprise you with their impeccable comic timing. With one speaking gibberish and the other mouthing the most difficult version of Urdu, you’ll find yourself rolling in laughter every time they converse.

Farida lights up the frame with her presence and steals the show every time she appears in it. Spoiler alert: she’s even seen seducing a terrorist at one point. Kiran and she remain the strongest links of the film. And then there’s the trio of Puneet Issar, Pankaj Dheer and Sudesh Berry, who take you down the memory lane, revising their characters from BR Chopra’s Mahabharat.

Jackie Shroff, on the other hand, appears as Zatara. And while he looks the part of a Mujahideen leader, this is a zone we’ve seen him sinking his teeth into far too many times. The same can be said about Johnny Lever. And even when nothing makes sense and you find yourself questioning why, what and how, Welcome To The Jungle impresses you because of its unapologetic commitment to its own madness.

You don’t know how a bunch of flop actors suddenly fight a group of terrorists and free Indian villagers from their clutch. You don’t know how they suddenly become deft in wielding guns. You don’t know why the women behave in the way they do. You don’t know why people lose their voices each time they get excited. You don’t know why a visually impaired DoP gets to shoot a film.

And you don’t know why most people have fluency disorders. And circling back to its meta references, the makers don’t shy away from taking potshots at actors, their tantrums, their entourage and them feigning shock at paparazzi swarming them despite tipping them off first. Kudos to Akshay for playing along! This is classic guilty pleasure cinema.

Basically, Welcome To The Jungle throws everything at the wall, right from meta humour, slapstick and nostalgia to action and gibberish, and somehow, enough of it sticks. There’s nothing that lies beneath the noise and it may not make sense, but then again, sense was never really the point. It works best when you surrender to its wild, logic-defying energy and simply go along for the ride.