Writer: Janak

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Watch this if you liked: Watch this if you liked: "No Entry", "Dhamaal", "Malamal Weekly", and "Munnabhai MBBS".

This past few years has really been good for Bollywood comedy movies. Despite Bollywood preaching traditional values to its audience, comedy with traditional values is much better. The other good reason is also because it makes one feel good after a long hard day. These comedy movies release stress and tension and it can be the key factor for the comedy genre success at Bollywood.

The same goes for "Welcome" - another comedy by director (Anees Bazmee). "Welcome" tells of the story of two different families who preach and believe in the same traditional values when it concerns the issue of marriage.

Dr Ghungroo (Paresh Rawal) is a doctor in Mumbai. He has everything in life and his final goal is to get his nephew Rajiv (Akshay Kumar) married to a nice girl from a decent family. The only problem he faces is that every time he manages to find a family, they seemed to be the total opposite of what he thinks of them and this makes finding a bride for his nephew difficult. On the flip side, Uday Shetty (Nana Patekar) an underworld Don has all that he wants except finding a decent bridegroom for his sister, Sanjana (Katrina Kaif). All the families withdraw their proposal for Sanjana and make a hasty retreat when Uday reveals his 'profession'.

One day, Majnu (Anil Kapoor) the younger brother of Uday meets into Rajiv and finds that he is the right person for Sanjana. He decides to tell Uday about Rajiv. On the other end, Rajiv meets Sanjana and they fall in love and Dr. Ghungroo meets Uday to discuss a marriage. The catch is, Uday and Majnu are not aware that Rajiv is actually Dr. Ghungroo's nephew and, Dr. Ghungroo and Rajiv are not aware that Sanjana is actually Uday and Manju's sister. Now comes the series of funny and tickling situations when both families slowly find out about each other. To add more spice into the situation, Uday's boss RDX (Feroz Khan) returns to Mumbai to meet all of them and an unknown girl name Ishika (Mallika Sherawat) comes into the scene to claiming that she is Rajiv's wife.

This is the second movie by director (Anees Baznee) after last year's "No Entry", a comedy hit in India and overseas. The movie starred Anil Kapoor and other cast included Salman Khan, Fardeen Khan and Bipasha Basu. The backbone of "Welcome" definitely belonged to Nana Patekar and Paresh Rawal. Although all the cast played their roles very well, the comedic timing of Paresh Rawal in particular was perfect. The story and songs might not impress the audience much but the acting and dialogue will definitely hold their attention.

The plot is rather predictable from the start, as we knew that somehow both families would end up happy, just like all the other Bollywood movies. The effects and cinematography are not bad for a low budget movie. 70% of the movie was shot in Cape Town, Africa and the cinematographer did a good job portraying the backdrops during the song sequences. The songs are no big deal except that a few people will definitely rhyme to it when walking out of the cinema. This is because most of the songs were more like a Bhangra type.

For the comedy scenes, some of them were too long and unnecessary and there should have been more focus on the characters. In fact, the entire car chase scene should have been deleted and the last scene cut short as it was prolonged.

Overall, this movie is still 'watchable' if you really are feeling stressed, tired and trying to get away for a good silly laugh. One way to do it is by catching this movie. Happy watching.

Cinema Online, 23 September 2008