One simple question to start with……In the current scenario, are we always supposed to see a Bollywood Comedy leaving our thinking brains at home?......Really fed up with this phrase often used to praise mindless comedies, I was completely taken back by the treatment given by Priyadarshan to his latest script-less movie called “De Dana Dan”. Once again taking his inspirations from the English flicks, “Blame It on The Bellboy” (1992) & “The Towering Inferno” (1974), the director delivers a completely over the top and loud movie which miserably fails to impress the viewers in any of its department.
With more than 20 characters in the script, played by all well known actors of the Industry, the project has too many things to deal with on its platter. It really remains a questionable decision that even after the presence of the famous “Hera Pheri” comic trio, what was the need of roping in almost everyone related to comedy genre in the industry ranging from the veterans Asrani & Shakti Kapoor to the currently famous Johny Lever & Rajpal Yadav. Priyadarshan may have successfully dealt with them all in few of his previous projects but this time he simply slips disastrously.
Storyline has never been the major highlight of a Priyadarshan project. But in “De Dana Dan”, he very daringly treats the story requirement of a movie in the most careless manner. Starting with few good scenes moving around a Kidnapping plot, the movie starts going into various opposite directions with a desperate plea to make you laugh. Post interval it looks like the director and the whole unit somehow lost their original script in the transit and just went on with the shooting as per their outdoor schedule.
After an hour the movie has nothing related to a story and it just has all its characters confusingly following each other with mistaken identities. Collectively living in the same five star hotel, everyone keeps barging into unknown rooms trying to create some hilarious scenes for the viewers. And the most surprising part is that post intermission the biggest star of the movie, Akshay Kumar simply vanishes from the screen for more than half an hour. According to the proceedings he gets locked in a closet and remains there for a good amount of time. But what was the use of locking your most sellable star like that. Anyone else could have been easily locked with a little change in the one page script.
“De Dana Dan” has loads of absurdities in its narration, which fail to convince even if you take them as a part of a brainless comedy flick. For instance, a full grown man (Akshay Kumar) has been kidnapped but the whole Indian community (in Singapore) and the entire media is searching for a kid instead, because that is the only photograph available of the kidnapped person. In the climax the top floor water reservoir of a more than 30 story hotel gets exploded due to a bomb. And that shockingly brings a major flood like situation in the entire multistory building with everything floating in the heavy water flow. In fact the silly watery sequence hilariously resembled the one recently seen in “Tum Mile”.
Performance wise this is a perfect example of a film with the most numbers of stars, where not even one makes his presence felt in the end. For the first time ever, I found Paresh Rawal, hamming with his intentional Punjabi accent. The viewers are sure going to miss the cult Paresh Rawal act of his previous hit comedies. Akshay Kumar is not entirely there in the movie. He starts off with some good scenes with Archna Puran Singh, but later gets lost in the overcrowded star-cast. Not using him as per his much applauded comic timing is entirely the fault of his director. Suniel Shetty does his act with an unconcerned ease and he seems to be included only to complete the famous comedy trio.
Both Katrina Kaif & Sameera Reddy can count their major scenes on one hand. They only contribute in the film as its female lead and nothing else. In comparison, Neha Dhupia makes a better impact in her few moments on the screen. Archana Puran Singh shouts more and acts less. Aditi Gowariker once again proves that she is a better model. Shakti Kapoor repeats his sex maniac act. Asrani, Tinnu Anand & Manoj Joshi are routine, but Chunkey Pandey, Rajpal Yadav and Johny Lever are wasted in their unimportant roles. Sharat Saxena & Vikram Ghokhle are miscast as they simply do not belong to the comedy genre.
Pritam’s music is not outstanding as expected. But the RDB track “Paisa Paisa” is a major hit which also has its own history in the Punjabi Music Industry. The track was the opening song of the Debut Album of Manak-E released few years back, which had music by RDB and was also promoted well with a music video on the leading Punjabi channels. It was indeed quite thoughtful of both RDB and Akshay to use the song with the same singer in the promotional campaign of the movie. However as usual, all the songs are inserted in the script without any specific need. Background score by Salim-Suleman is energetic and Cinematography is fine as per the requirement of the subject but the film tends to go over length due to its bizarre climax.
On the whole, it’s just another instance of better promotion and poor content. Few weeks before, I could understand the success of “Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani” (though I personally rated it quite low) as it had a worth praising act by Ranbir Kapoor, good songs and some hilarious scenes with mass appeal, but if “De Dana Dan” goes on to become a big Hit then I really fear what kind of projects we are going to get in the near future.
And lastly one sincere request for the director, who gave us the cult “Hera Pheri”……..Please take a break and re-invent yourself on priority basis…!
Rating : 1.5 / 5
