Critics’ Verdict: ‘Mubarakan’ Manages to Pull a Few Laughs

Here’s what critics have to say about Anil Kapoor and Arjun Kapoor starrer, ‘Mubarakan’.

Film: Mubarakan
Director: Anees Bazmee
Cast: Arjun Kapoor, Anil Kapoor, Ileana D'Cruz, Athiya Shetty, Neha Sharma, Ratna Pathak Shah

Excerpts from reviews of Mubarakan:

To begin with, I have to say that Mubarakan has a faint semblance of a plot, which comes as a relief given what we’ve been subjected to in his last outing (Welcome Back). Pretty girls Ileana D’Cruz, Neha Sharma and Athiya Shetty show up, the former getting in a line or two. Sharma plays a Muslim girl (‘haaye haaye’) in love with one of the brawny Punjabi ‘mundas’, and you cheer, just a little, because hey, who knows, we may be in for some inter-religious amity. And a comedy of errors is set into motion, revolving around reluctant grooms and runaway brides, and a good Punjabi ‘praa’ (Pavan Malhotra) and his equally loving ‘bainji’ (Shah). So far, I’m not wincing. And then the post-interval set is upon us, and suddenly, the film’s funny bone gets lost. It becomes a long, maudlin harangue on family values and good sisters and brothers, while slipping in a few distasteful jokes about wives and women. And that Muslim girl angle? It is just a ruse, and a total cop-out. A character says wearily: ‘kab khatam hoga yeh?’ And that’s the end of that. 

Shubhra Gupta (The Indian Express)

Mubarakan is generally puerile, occasionally fun, and always unabashedly over the top. It is just the sort of mix of song, dance, comic gags and unbridled lunacy that Bollywood’s mass audience so loves. So, there is superhit written all over the film, but this puffy concoction simply isn’t for those with a taste for more subtle and easy-flowing humour. Mubarakan tries too hard to tickle our funny bones and the effort shows.

Saibal Chatterjee (NDTV)

The film best works when it is ingeniously silly such as the random mannequin in the back of Kartar Singh’s Hummer or when he spots an angel loitering in his garden as he talks to his brother’s ghost. A mobile hawker named Izzat ka Falooda takes the cake though. Less tone-deaf humour, more quirks, a shorter running time and a more able younger cast and Mubarakan could have been more delightful.

Suhani Singh (India Today)

Long drawn out scenes and overwritten speeches overacted in overdressed sets bring in narrative drag, which is hara-kiri for a situational comedy that can succeed only if your brain is not given time to apply logic. If ‘leaving your brains at home’ seems difficult, you know what you should not watch this weekend. Fortunately, the humour does not degenerate to crass double entendres. Family entertainment is clearly at the core and Mubarakan manages to deliver enough laughs.

Udita Jhunjhunwala (FirstPost)

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