Review

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Take it or leave it. A "Dil Chahta Hai" male-bonding fable with loads of double-meaning, jokes, provocation and finally a neatly "conservative" ending that says, 'Hey guys, fun done, extramarital peccadilloes over. Now it's time to tell you that marriages are for keeps.'

Meet Amar Prem. That's their name. And while their wives stay at home, skirt chasing is their game... Misogyny, homophobic and sexist jokes abound.

And if you thought upmarket actors were above double-meaning jokes, then wait till you hear Vivek Oberoi and Ajay Devgan comparing wives and girlfriends to home cooked food and biryani.

But hey, it's all in fun! And our three principal stars Meet (Vivek), Amar (Ritesh Deshmukh) and Prem (Aftab Shivdasani) seem to be full of the fun factor. The actors give their roles a certain zany twist, which goes a long way in preventing the satire from falling apart under the pressure of spatial and time-related excesses.

Unfortunately, Indra Kumar's Gujarati brand of satire - on full display in his earlier films like "Ishq" - when combined with Milap Jhaveri's urbane boys' backroom chortles yields what can only be branded a pandemonium of precocity and perversity.

Specially over-the-top and elongated are the gay jokes. There're two highly unnecessary and prolonged jokes about Satish Shah, Ritesh and Aftab.

Indra Kumar seems stuck between the traditional way of doing a sex comedy and the more upmarket trendy nudge-nudge-wink-wink style. The end-result is more shriek than chic.

The ongoing mockery of Satish Shah's homophobic character by Aftab and Ritesh is inspired by Shah Rukh and Saif in "Kal Ho Na Ho", while their names Amar and Prem are not so much a tribute to the Rajesh Khanna romantic classic as Raj Kumar Santoshi's slapstick bonanza "Andaz Apna Apna" where Aamir and Salman were named Amar and Prem.

If you peer really close at the mirth-worth of "Masti", you'll see elements from several other comedies. Ritesh's choppy relationship with his wife (Genelia) and mother-in-law Archana Puransingh is lifted straight from Vikram Bhatt's "Awaara Paagal Deewana", which in turn was lifted from Hollywood's "The Whole Nine Yards".

Like the two earlier films, Ritesh is an oppressed dentist. His track with 'patient' Rakhi Sawant, replete with cleavage jokes, ends with the 'lady' turning out to be a transvestite.

Throughout the partially amusing sex comedy you get a feeling of watching a Gujarati sex comedy and a West End porno play. Indra Kumar swings both ways without creating a swinging comedy.

Naughty premises about men with roving eyes aren't strange to mainstream Hindi cinema. B.R. Chopra's "Pati Patni Aur Who" and Basu Chaterjee's "Shaukeen" romanced the raunchy, but without a cyclone of lewd dialogues that seem to be an inherent part of "Masti".

The production values, including the music (Anand Raj Anand) and cinematography (Mazhar Kamran) are just about serviceable.

Milap Jhaveri's dialogues are more foamy than funny. He creates a lather of lewd lines for three grownup men.

While the rest of the film looks like a combination of "Dil Chahta Hai" and "Jhankar Beats", the last lap of the raunchy journey resembles the Kamal Haasan hit "Sathi Leelavathi".

The efficacy of "Masti" hinges on the performances. Vivek, Aftab and Ritesh are in full bacchanalian bloom. Aftab is no stranger to comedy. He pitches in sportingly with loads of self-mocking attitude.

Ritesh as the simpleton of the trio stays in character with a lost-in-space expression. He's a natural.

Vivek's flair for comedy flares up in spurts of sexual innuendoes. His craving for spousal space is achingly funny.

But what, pray, is Ajay Devgan doing here?

The trio of wives is all ill cast and shadowy in its motivations. Lara Dutta in an extended cameo as the femme fatale who takes the three heroes for a ride once again sizzles. She's cool, chic, urban, seductive and entertaining.