Sunday, November 29, 2009
De Dana Dan
De Dana Dan
To be fair to Priyadarshan and the makers of other such confusion confounded movies, it is a tough genre to work with, and it is a wonder he isn’t bored with it. What it requires is to create a complicated web of misunderstandings, coincidences, mistaken identities—bring the many characters somehow to one venue and let them run wild. This is what many of Priyadarshan’s recent films have been like and this summarizes his latest De Dana Dan. Only, in this film, he has more confusion than he or any sensible viewer can handle.
Blame it on the Bell Boy and The Valet, prepare the base on which this film (also Do Not Disturb recently) set in a Singapore hotel is constructed. (The Pan Pacific gets crores worth of publicity and, hopefully loads of Indian tourist traffic.) The impoverished and desperate Nitin (Akshay Kumar) and Ram (Sunil Shetty) hole up there waiting to collect a fortune from the former’s monstrous (she keeps kicking him into a pool) boss (Archana Puran Singh) by kidnapping her dog.
The kidnap plan fails—the dog is smarter than the two goofballs and their smile-pout girlfriends (Katrina Kaif-Sameera Reddy). But as part of a wedding party Paresh Rawal, Chunky Pandey, Manoj Joshi and gang land up there. Rajpal Yadav is already there as a bumbling waiter. Add to that Jonny Lever, Asrani, Shakti Kapoor, Sharat Saxena and the Priyadarshan menagerie is complete. Maybe only Om Puri is missing, and Vikram Gokhale is added. There’s Neha Dhupia for some oomph which the other two ladies fail to muster up.
One set of people has to give money to another, the wrong one gets it, a hitman follows the wrong target and in the midst of all the mayhem, Akshay Kumar gets locked in a cupboard, and is, in effect out of the film for most of its running time.
Everyone shouts and screams and like in all Priyadarshan comedies, come together in a watery climax.
Of its nearly three-hour running time, there could be fifteen minutes of real comedy. The rest is like listening to nails being hammered into a wall.
To be fair to Priyadarshan and the makers of other such confusion confounded movies, it is a tough genre to work with, and it is a wonder he isn’t bored with it. What it requires is to create a complicated web of misunderstandings, coincidences, mistaken identities—bring the many characters somehow to one venue and let them run wild. This is what many of Priyadarshan’s recent films have been like and this summarizes his latest De Dana Dan. Only, in this film, he has more confusion than he or any sensible viewer can handle.
Blame it on the Bell Boy and The Valet, prepare the base on which this film (also Do Not Disturb recently) set in a Singapore hotel is constructed. (The Pan Pacific gets crores worth of publicity and, hopefully loads of Indian tourist traffic.) The impoverished and desperate Nitin (Akshay Kumar) and Ram (Sunil Shetty) hole up there waiting to collect a fortune from the former’s monstrous (she keeps kicking him into a pool) boss (Archana Puran Singh) by kidnapping her dog.
The kidnap plan fails—the dog is smarter than the two goofballs and their smile-pout girlfriends (Katrina Kaif-Sameera Reddy). But as part of a wedding party Paresh Rawal, Chunky Pandey, Manoj Joshi and gang land up there. Rajpal Yadav is already there as a bumbling waiter. Add to that Jonny Lever, Asrani, Shakti Kapoor, Sharat Saxena and the Priyadarshan menagerie is complete. Maybe only Om Puri is missing, and Vikram Gokhale is added. There’s Neha Dhupia for some oomph which the other two ladies fail to muster up.
One set of people has to give money to another, the wrong one gets it, a hitman follows the wrong target and in the midst of all the mayhem, Akshay Kumar gets locked in a cupboard, and is, in effect out of the film for most of its running time.
Everyone shouts and screams and like in all Priyadarshan comedies, come together in a watery climax.
Of its nearly three-hour running time, there could be fifteen minutes of real comedy. The rest is like listening to nails being hammered into a wall.
Labels: Cinemaah
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