‘Welcome to the Jungle’ review: A non-stop hodgepodge

The third film in the Welcome series gathers so many actors together that you may need to make notes to keep track of who’s doing what. Ahmed Khan’s Welcome to the Jungle stars Akshay Kumar in the main surrounded by Suniel Shetty, Arshad Warsi, Paresh Rawal, Rajpal Yadav, Disha Patani, Jacqueline Fernandez and enough other names to fill an entire diary.

Tax-evading businessman Sahni (Zakir Hussain) is advised by his employee Dubey (Jonny Lever) to deliberately finance a flop movie to show a loss. Dubey goes about recruiting the worst technicians and actors he find.

These include the directing duo Dev (Rajpal Yadav) and Das (Paresh Rawal), the one-eyed cinematographer Nainsukh (Shreyas Talpade), flop actor Rajiv (Akshay Kumar), Sahni’s daughter Jenny (Jacqueline Fernandez) and Rajiv’s ex-girlfriend Nadia (Disha Patani). The buddy pairs thrown into the mix are the gangsters Romeo (Arshad Warsi) and Yeda (Suniel Shetty), Rangwa (Mukesh Tiwari) and Jagwa (Yashpal Sharma) and Rambo (Krushna Abhishek) and Jumbo (Kiku Sharda).

Daler, played by the singer Daler Mehndi, is an outlier, there for reasons that remain unknown to him and us and probably accounts for his permanently befuddled expression.

The menagerie, accompanied by Rajiv’s manager Benny (Tusshar Kapoor), turn up in a border village between India and Pakistan. After undergoing training...

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