This cute but unremarkable film tells you to love animals. It’s a simple, straightforward premise structured around a comical plot about a gold-digger wastrel whose father leaves his billions to his dog. Playing the predatory retriever with an evil glint in his eye and wicked smirk on his face, Akshay Kumar has a ball in the film. He does a wickedly amiable mean act trying to poison, electrocute and drown the canine. Admittedly, the characters on screen seem to enjoy themselves more than the audience.
Not that we don’t share their enjoyment.
For a large part of the narration, “Entertainment” is fun to watch. The script is deftly and devilishly put together. If only writer-turned-co-directors Sajid-Farhad did not trip over the cascade of word-play, the going would have been much more pleasing.
Lamentably, every character speaks in a tumble of puns and word play, some of them painfully plodding and self-conscious.
My most cringe-worthy ode to filmy word-play is, “Apna Sonakshi Seena taan ke chal.”
Really, now. Where there are the saints, there are also the Sinhas. The character played by the comically vibrant Krushna Abhishek crams in actors’ names in every sentence. This would have been infuriatingly obtrusive in a film of a more serious nature. No such calamity befalls “Entertainment.”
The biggest USP of the reasonably entertaining “Entertainment” is that it never makes the mistake of taking itself too seriously.
In the hilarious opening, where in a product-endorsement spoof with Riteish Deshmukh, Akshay establishes his character as a rogue and a charlatan, the film hops, skips and jumps through hilarious hoopla, sometime generating a reluctant laughter in the audience, at other times leaving you a little numbed by the fatuous flavour of the farce.
In one sequence, where the leading lady Tamannah’s father, Mithun Chakraborty (singularly unfunny), advises his daughter to marry the dog since husbands become “dogs” after marriage anyway, one is not sure if the co-directors aim to be kinky or comical.
Some scenes walk on thick ice, quite literally. The moral turning-point for Akshay’s character vis-a-vis the canine happens in a scene spread out on a dangerously thin ice-bed. It defines what the film tries to achieve given its flimsy premise and nebulous moral ground.
Holding the film from falling apart is Akshay Kumar. Sporting and sometimes sparkling with his comic timing, he helps the audience to get over the serious silliness of some of the material in the second half where, in a style of cat-and-mouse game of “Home Alone” and “Dunston Checks In”, Akshay gets even with two bumbling comic villains played with anarchic gusto by Prakash Raj and Sonu Sood.
Here is where the narration needed to exercise more temperance. Here is where “Entertainment” errs. It doles out too much of the farcical garnish that tends to tarnish the innocence of the relationship between Dog and Man.
A blend of the mischievous and the mirthful, “Entertainment” is a green-lit blues-chaser which tends to get carried away with its fun of mood. The gags flow non-stop, accommodating a hefty amount of playing-time to letting the characters grow into precocious over-grown brats.
In one sequence, when Akshay Kumar gets to know his father’s billions have gone to the dog, he rolls on the floor and wails like a baby.
Dare any other A-lister actor do that. Entertainment takes on the tripe that our cinema enjoys dishing out and turns it into some kind of a queasy crap-convention that knows it is making little sense most of the time and is not apologetic about its lowbrow aspirations.
And yes, most of Akshay Kumar’s chemistry is with his canine co-star, an imperturbable retriever who seems resigned to being thrown in the middle of a plot which he cannot make sense of.
We second that emotion.
First Shah Rukh decided to give top billing to his heroines. Now Akshay Kumar will let his canine co-star’s name appear before his in the credit titles of Sajid-Farhad’s Entertainment. He is one of the biggest superstars of Bollywood. But when it comes to his latest co-star, Akshay Kumar has downed the shutters on all sense of competitiveness.
And though his co-star is a Junior, on more ways than one, Akshay has very generously agreed to let him take top billing.
We’re talking about Akshay’s canine co-star, the very moody and pampered dog Junior who plays the title role in debutant co-directors Sajid-Farhad’s Entertainment.
Junior will be billed before Akshay Kumar in the credit titles of Entertainment.
Confirming this astounding development, Farhad says, “Junior will get top billing in the opening credit titles of Entertainment, above Akshay. And it’s Akshay’s idea. He feels Junior plays the title role and is the main protagonist of the film. The credit titles will therefore read, ‘Starring Junior… Akshay Kumar…’”
Adds Farhad, “This is the first time another co-star is playing the title role in an Akshay starrer. So far we’ve seen only Akshay play the title role, whether it is in the Khiladi series, Ajnabee, Singh Is Kinng or Rowdy Rathod. Even in Main Khiladi Tu Anari, Akshay played the Khiladi while Saif was the Anari.”
Dispelling all the rumours of Akshay messing around with his co-actors’ roles, Farhad asserts, “In fact, when Akshay is asked if he has cut his co-star’s role in Entertainment, he retorts, ‘Nahin, ussney mujhe kaata hai.’ To this, my brother Sajid and I would like to add, ‘Badi kutti cheez hai hamari film. Aap zaroor dekhen.’”
On the sets of Entertainment, Akshay found a new buddy.
Speaking fondly of the doggie, Akshay said: “His name in the film is ‘Entertainment’ and he and I will be buddies for life.”
The two bonded while shooting for their film together. “I made sure he didn’t just feel like a dog being made to do tricks for treats. I would spend a lot of time off-camera playing with him. As soon as he accepted it, we were pals and not just co-stars.
“He’d let me sleep on his belly at break times, which was the most blissful feeling in the world,” Akshay said.
The two buddies also got sporty on the sets. “He loved it when I played ball with him, as his attention toy was a tennis ball, which I carried everywhere with me. He’s a beautiful dog. From the bottom of my heart, I feel every gentle kid should have a dog. There is no companionship quite like it,” he added. Even before befriending his canine co-star, Akshay was a dogs person. “My homes are full of dogs, and that’s been the case for years! I have two German Shepherds named Oaky and Clio in my Mumbai home, and a Golden Labrador who looks after my little Portuguese Villa in Goa.
“Even at my mom’s house, who lives just above me, we have a little funny crossed-eyed Beagle that is my niece’s pet. She adores him to bits,” said the actor.
To Akshay, canines are the most dependable creatures. “For me, dogs are where the heart is, at home, looking after your family while you can’t.”
