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Rating: ★.5
The latest installment in the long-running comedy franchise, Mastiii 4, returns after a decade hiatus only to prove that nostalgia is not always a successful marketing strategy. The film, directed by Milap Zaveri, is panned as a chaotic and tiresome return that attempts to use crude humor and loud execution to compensate for its lack of genuine comedic writing.
📝 The Plot and The Problem
- Storyline: The movie centers on the three married friends from the original film—Amar (Riteish Deshmukh), Meet (Vivek Oberoi), and Prem (Aftab Shivdasani) —who are trapped in miserable domestic routines in the UK. They adopt a bizarre ‘love visa’ concept, demanding a week of annual freedom from their wives. This sparks suspicion and a spiral of misunderstandings that culminates in a chaotic, second-half circus filled with mistaken affairs and relentless toilet humor.
- The Verdict: The review criticizes the film for drowning in its own “overkill,” confusing noise and speed with humor. The jokes are noted to “collapse faster than the marriages at the centre of the film,” resulting in a “cringe-heavy ride.”
🎭 Cast Performance
- The Good: Riteish Deshmukh is singled out as the only actor who appears genuinely committed to the franchise’s tone, playing Amar with a sincerity the screenplay doesn’t deserve. Aftab Shivdasani is also noted to understand the franchise’s required tone. Genelia Deshmukh’s cameo is described as a brief, refreshing respite.
- The Bad: Vivek Oberoi’s performance is deemed to cross the line from exaggerated to “exhausting.” The character of Tusshar Kapoor’s Don Pablo Putinwa had potential but was hindered by poor writing.
❌ Major Criticisms
- Jokes Fail to Land: The most critical flaw noted is that for a comedy, the jokes “barely land,” with the writing leaning too heavily on crude humor to be funny.
- Recycled Ideas: The film is accused of an “unapologetic rehashing of an old one-liner” from a 2014 film, suggesting the writing team ran out of ideas early.
- Pacing and Climax: The pacing collapses after the interval, leading to a predictable twist. The pre-climax sequence is so “confounding it feels like a collective lapse in judgement.”
The original Masti (2004) was praised for its chemistry and early-2000s innocence, qualities that the sequels (Grand Masti and Great Grand Masti) lost, and which Mastiii 4 fails entirely to recapture.