As if the first two times weren’t bad enough, Indra Kumar decided there was merit in subjecting audiences to a third in the Masti series. Prem (Aftab Shivdasani), Meet (Vivek Oberoi) and Amar (Riteish Deshmukh) reunite for this genre mash-up of adult comedy and horror. Three desperate married men, denied congress in their own homes due to various interfering family members, set off on a dirty weekend to cheat on their respective wives.
Amar, Prem and Meet decide to spend a few days at Amar’s sprawling, uninhabited ancestral mansion in the village of Doodhwadi. The trio enters the house without heeding the warning of Ramsey, a local Thakur who recounts in rhyme the story of Ragini, a ghost who haunts the house. “Ragini MMS?” asks Prem. “No, SMS. Simple magar sexy (simple but sexy),” replies Ramsey.
The boys can’t believe their luck when they first meet the curvaceous Ragini (Urvashi Rautela), who offers to work as their maid. The bets are on as to who beds her first, until the trio discovers that the most sexually needy person in the house isn’t any of them but Ragini. She’s a restless spirit, dead 50 years but still craving sexual intimacy, on the lookout for a man to satisfy her needs and set her spirit free.
Director Indra Kumar and writer Tushar Hiranandani have tossed their moral compass out of the window. Every joke is repeated a minimum of three times, double entendres abound and every actor performs more idiotically than the next.
Comedy works best when actors stay in character and funny things happen to or around them. But in the Masti series, which blends in with the Kya Kool Hain Hums and Mastizaades, every character (there’s also Sanjay Mishra as Antakshari Baba and Usha Nadkarni as Amar’s screechy harridan of a mother-in-law) reacts with bouts of kinetic twitching and gravity-defying face contortions. Thankfully the three wives, played by Shradha Das, Mishti and Pooja Bose, remain rather calm throughout despite the hysteria and lecherous behaviour surrounding them.
Still, if there’s one remarkable thing about this film, it’s that Shivdasani, Deshmukh and Oberoi see merit in reprising their parts as lascivious men driven by under-serviced libidos, and invest those roles with such energy and commitment.
