Welcome Back Review: Unwelcome Return

Shiney Ahuja as his son Lucky, though in a relatively small role, plays his part to perfection.

“Welcome Back” which opened to scathing reviews of the movie being a half- baked illogical job, it seems has managed to hit the spot with the audiences and swiftly raked up Rs14.35 crores on its very first day.

They have left their days of crime behind, but not their swagger and bluster.

The duo is desperate to end their single status.

Dimple Kapadia as the con-woman Poonam along with Shruti Haasan and Ankita leave their mark. From here chaos starts because Uday & Majnu do not want her sister to marry with Ajju. The now reformed Dubai based bhais Majnu (Anil Kapoor) and Uday Shetty (Nana Patekar) – are still unmarried and remain virtually undateable. They decide to get her married before they can settle down.

Meanwhile, John Abraham joins the gangster fraternity as Ajju bhai. He falls in love with Uday’s sis, but the brothers are looking for a decent boy, not another goon. He plays the son of blind don Naseeruddin Shah.

Welcome Back rolls it all out with vengeance: snazzy automobiles, eye-popping locations, flashy conmen, a relentlessly obtrusive background score and an unconscionably elongated climax in the desert.

By this point, it ceases to matter who is gunning for whom. ” A long graveyard scene is thrown in, with Kapoor breaking into his fantastic “Ae ji O ji” number, with his never tiring, super-enthusiastic grin”. At 153 minutes, the film is stretched and there aren’t enough clever lines or amusing gags to fill up the time. Patekar, Kapoor and Rawal slip into their roles easily and their superb comic timing makes an otherwise mediocre film, entertaining. Being single, they decide it is time to get domesticated. Also Read: I have handsome relationship with Akshay: John Abraham Like most Bazmee’s films, the film is full of outlandish thug-outdoing-thug situations and is bursting at the seams with conmen, which surprisingly works in its favour. He is both a scowling action star and a soft romantic hero in “Welcome Back“. So the set-up to the romance between Shruti and John – wherein both mistake each other for being deaf-mute – is lazy and predictable.

Watch it only if banal buffoonery of this kind does not put you off.

So, should the red carpet be rolled out for “Welcome Back“? No.