Vampire Owl :: Thank You. I appreciate it.

Vampire Bat :: What do you appreciate? Why?

Vampire Owl :: You said welcome back when I entered the theatre.

Vampire Bat :: I was telling the name of the movie when you entered. Why do you talk as if the theatre is my ancestral property?

Vampire Owl :: Actually, as you spend a lot of time here, I had the feeling that this is really your home. You should actually think about shifting here. This way, you can sleep in the queue and when you wake up, you will be the first one on the queue.

Vampire Bat :: This is why nobody listens to your ideas.

Vampire Owl :: Or you can marry the daughter of a theatre owner, or ask for some kind of season ticket for movies. See, I am giving you free advice which nobody else can offer.

Vampire Bat :: You can do me a favour by not giving me any idea.

Vampire Owl :: You are going to make me watch a Hindi comedy movie after you got me to watch Humshakals and Main Tera Hero. You will be forced to return to my ideas in return.

Vampire Bat :: That was because we missed the movies which we were actually going to watch on those days. Now you have ruined the day already by talking about those movies.

[Gets ready for the movie].

What is it about? :: Uday Shetty (Nana Patekar) and Majnu Pandey (Anil Kapoor) have ceased being dons and are running big hotel business in Dubai, as they try hard to control themselves from going back to their life of crime again. But they are finding a certain amount of loneliness in their lives, and the realization that even their low level henchmen are happily married with kids makes them very depressed. They look for the right person to marry as they find Nandini (Ankita Shrivastava), a stunningly good-looking girl who is also a princess from some royal family. With beauty and royalty there in store, both men falls for the same girl, and hopes to have the happy ending for themselves. Her mother, the royal mother, the Maharani (Dimple Kapadia) makes arrangements for the wedding.

And welcome back the problems and confusions :: There is the tough decision to make, based on which of the two to marry. Ever since they were shot on the heart with one sight of the girl in bikini at the beach, both of them are not ready to back-off. Meanwhile, Uday’s father comes to the scene with another daughter in his third marriage, Ranjhana (Shruti Haasan) and hopes that the former underworld dons try to get her married too. The mother-daughter team who are not really of royal blood, but con women who are hoping to steal as much money from the two friends as much as possible, come up with the condition that their sister has to be married off at first, because it is the tradition. This is where Doctor Ghungroo (Paresh Rawal) and his step-son Ajay Barsi a.k.a Ajju Bhai (John Abraham) comes to the picture.

The defence of Welcome Back :: There is no moment when this movie pretends to be smart, and you know what to expect here right from the beginning and throughout the movie. The visuals are stunning, and they have used Dubai to give some of the best treats for the eyes of the audience. The laughs are there, and most of the jokes are delivered through some interesting dialogues – the path is lead by the trio of Paresh Rawal, Nana Patekar and Anil Kapoor as expected. With these three around, there is the certainty of fun; the comic timing is right there as even the more simpler situations are turned into scenes of comedy. The pick of all the funny scenes is the one at the cemetery. There is also no shortage of style and good-looking people in this movie. There are only a few comic situations which goes down in effect; otherwise the comedy, despite being mindless is right there.

Claws of flaw :: The silliness of the movie is heavy, and it gets more ridiculous by the end. There is a strange mayhem going on in the end along with some extra meaninglessness added as if to make things come together. There are big SUVs, helicopters, remote controlled copters which explode, gangsters shooting, people running around, random people falling – there is even a sand storm and running camels making no sense even with nothing in the mind. The songs are not much interesting, and the source material surely had scope for better development and even more fun. May be they never really needed another big don here, and may be the focus could have always been with how the former underworld dons are manipulated into agreeing to the marriage, with mother and daughter playing interesting parts in it happening. But this has chosen to keep any trace of logic out of the scene, and has also stretched the flick.

Performers of the soul :: John Abraham proves to be good – he is not the show-stealer here, but he has done his part with sincerity, and here he is showing some skills with the comic side. He has managed this avatar just the way one would expect it to be. Shruti Haasan looks very cute throughout the movie, and doesn’t have much to perform. The big performances go into the hands of Nana Patekar and Anil Kapoor who steals the show along with Paresh Rawal. These three make this movie the fun that it has managed to be. They just can’t be replaced, not even a twenty sequels later (who knows how many more will come this way). The new comer Ankita Shrivastava might be the most beautiful person around, and she has some skills for the comic side – there is future. Dimple Kapadia joins the fun well and Rajpal Yadav has some short, but funny moments. Naseeruddin Shah and Shiney Ahuja get a few such moments too.

How it finishes :: About the special appearances, only Surveen Chawla makes some impact. This one actually has similarities with Main Tera Hero, but doesn’t go that way to become a disaster. The credit for the same goes to how things are managed without heroism and the overacting which was abundant in that movie no longer exists here in the case of Welcome Back. The cast itself is the big boost to this movie as Wecome Back can provide something to those looking for this type of mindless comedies. This could have still been shorter, and getting rid of some of the cliches and repetitions would have been nice – one has to wonder what is hindering the innovation when not much trouble has been taking with other departments including the script. What we need here is not to think and just to enjoy the comic side. The South actually got Kunjiramayanam to enjoy more at the same time.

Release date: 4th September 2015
Running time: 152 minutes
Directed by: Anees Bazmee
Starring: John Abraham, Shruti Haasan, Nana Patekar, Anil Kapoor, Ankita Shrivastava, Dimple Kapadia, Naseeruddin Shah, Shiney Ahuja, Paresh Rawal, Supriya Karnik, Sakshi Maggo, Rajpal Yadav, Surveen Chawla (cameo), Lauren Gottlieb (cameo)

@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.