ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ

Comedies should always be taken lightly in Bollywood and Welcome is as zany as they come. Akshay Kumar is outlandish as ever as the man stuck in the middle of a big confusion, trying to get hitched to the sister of an infamous gangster. And while Welcome emerges as an addition to Kumar's repertoire of films that have little style and even less substance, it is the formidable ensemble cast that ultimately succeed in welcoming you to the theatre hall.

Rajiv (Kumar) is an ordinary man with ordinary problems. But when he falls in love with Sanjana (Katrina Kaif), his world is suddenly plunged into full-throttle drama. She's the daughter of a notorious gangster family, headed by Uday (Nana Patekar) and Majnu (Anil Kapoor). Rajiv's uncle (Paresh Rawal) adds further fuel to the flames by agreeing to (and then rejecting) a proposal from that very family! And as if it couldn't get any more complicated, another gangster enters the fray: RDX (Feroz Khan), the formidable eldest brother in the gangster family.

"PATEKAR IS THE SCENE-STEALER"

The stellar cast radically improves the chances of this comedy of errors, with shades of Mickey Blue Eyes throughout. Patekar is a scene-stealer all the way, proving to be equally skilled here as with the intense stuff he is usually associated with. But the lack of a coherent story reduces the film to a joke, and the tangent with Khan as RDX further undermines the plot. You'll either love or hate this film.

Welcome is out in the UK on 21st Dec 2007.