'Housefull 5': Akshay Kumar's vulgar, offensive, unfunny film is the embodiment of everything wrong with Bollywood comedies today

Once upon a time in Bollywood, filmmaker Sajid Khan envisioned a franchise called Housefull along with his friends Sajid Nadiadwala, Akshay Kumar, Riteish Deshmukh, and Chunky Panday. It was anything but a classic or a memorable film but its commercial success made way for Housefull 2 and before we could blink or breathe, came June 6, 2025, and we now have Housefull 5 playing in the cinemas in two versions with three hours, two killers, and one disaster. Incoherence was always this franchise’s forte but not innuendo. It’s appalling sexual jokes and bad innuendo flow like stale wine throughout the running time.

The three men have done pretty solid comedy in the past (Akshay Kumar, Riteish Deshmukh, and Abhishek Bachchan). What about the ladies of Housefull? Purely for screen presence and skin show. There are disconnected and discomforting jokes about bodies and the number 69 that suggest Milap Zaveri wanted to make Masti 4 out of this but Tarun Mansukhani won the race by having a smoother and faster drive (no puns here). The decision to cast 19 actors in one film and weave a murder mystery around it feels more banal than brave. All of them are stuck on a crisis and a cruise so there’s no running away. There’s no running away from the staleness of the enterprise and the asinine assault on the brain cells due to the humourless gags that keep popping up either.

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Unlike comedies like Baadshah and Dhamaal, Housefull 5 is unable to strike the balance between carefully crafting a deliciously bizarre plot and then winking at it with all glee. The leading man Kumar and his vein popping mannerisms and preposterously revealing jokes are bordering on being exaggerated and excruciating. The effortlessness of Garam Masala and the recent Khel Khel Mein lacks here purely because of Farhad Samji’s shockingly inept writing. And then there’s the always reliable Riteish Deshmukh, and the perpetually self deprecating Chunky Panday, but the essence of their otherwise entertaining characters has been mercilessly snatched away.

Which then brings us to two more key characters from the film- Shreyas Talpade and Chitrangda Singh. They both complete 20 years in the industry this year and had two of the greatest debuts for a Hindi film actor with the remarkable and rousing Iqbal and Hazaaron Khwahishen Aisi. Here, both the actors have tried their best to surrender to the blind vision of the makers. Chitrangda has a solid screen presence and if given a chance to sink her teeth into a role that contains a of flesh, she can chew it with all grin. Ditto for Talpade, an untapped and unexplored talent after a stunning and sensational turn right with his first moniker.

And and and, Jackie Shroff and Sanjay Dutt return to the big screen together with purposely dim-witted characters to evoke a sense of nostalgia and excitement. The Khalnayak background music swells to crescendo as if forcing the audiences to go back to 1993, even if we fail to recollect anything from that film except for the background music. The only actor who succeeds in at least putting a smile to your face is Nana Patekar, who laughs the least in this moronic mess. At least someone in this giant of a misfire realized what was coming, and that comedy is serious business. Now on to Housefull 6, box-office be damned!