YAMLA PAGLA DEEWANA - Movie Review : The good run of 2011 continues with a Dabangian kind of entertainment for the masses by the Deol Family. (Review By Bobby Sing)

The Deol family is back after APNE with a film which is just made for the masses providing complete entertainment to the lovers of hardcore masala Bollywood movies. It’s gives you a Dabangian kind of a feeling in which even when you know that its all illogical, full of loop holes and also over the top, yet you do enjoy the most of it with a smiling face and also laugh at certain sequences occasionally. In other words I felt like watching a new DABANGG made in Punjab where we have Sunny Deol punching the villains and throwing them mercilessly like the rotten vegetable bags lying in the godowns.

Putting it differently if you loved DABANGG and love watching movies of the legends Manmohan Desai & Prakash Mehra with all that lost and found emotional drama along with comedy, action and romance, then YAMLA PAGLA DEEWANA would be a perfect watch for you in this current week. The North India should love the movie immensely as it has the whole Deol parivar together in their full form and style. Yes there are many minuses too associated with the movie which do not allow me to call it a perfect film all together. But fortunately the strong merits of the film overshadow its demerits with a far better second half which successfully converts an otherwise ok movie into a good one.

Before writing further, I would like to say that its not at all logical at any place, so all the critics looking for some meaningful cinematic value in it may get disappointed. But at the same time its also not a silly or head-aching loud comedy made on the lines of Priyadarshan's last few comic ventures. Though it has a Priyan kind of a climax but overall the script uses its four ingredients - action, comedy romance and emotion quite effectively in the narration which in the end leaves you mostly satisfied. So, if you loved watching its trailer, then the chances are that you would surely enjoy the movie equally, if not better.

Starting with an expected solid Sunny Deol fight scene, the director Sameer Karnik makes his intensions clear that I am only interested in giving you entertainment and nothing else. Beginning from Canada, the film reaches Benaras when Sunny visits the city in search of his father and brother. Here Dharmendra and Bobby Deol are introduced as the famous con-men of the city but I seriously felt that the entry of our lovable Dharmendra could be much better. I was really expecting him to enter on the screen with more grandeur and style. Anyway, the first half majorly revolves around these three characters and a lovely lady Kulraj Randhawa who plays the love interest of Bobby.

Frankly speaking YAMLA PAGLA DEEWANA is one of those few movies whose second half is better than the first saving the film on the whole. The first half is just fine entertaining you in bits and parts. But it starts dragging after an hour with few un-required songs (why 2 item numbers in the bar) and a not so impressive romantic angle which should have been deleted at the editing table itself. Just before intermission the Sikh characters (brothers of Kulraj) enter the scene and then we are transformed into a completely different world of Punjab with more lively characters and hilarious sequences.

Post intermission the film moves at a great speed and has many more entertaining moments (with only 1 song) as compared to its first half. And that’s what saves the movie literally and wins the game. The writer Jaswinder Singh Bath is highly inspired by the folk story of MIRZA SAHIBA along with movies such as DDLJ and JAB WE MET which clearly shows in his second half. But the entertaining moments post interval, with the three Deols together, don’t let you think about anything else and one simply forgets about the resemblance of its plot with some earlier HIT movies.

Especially the second half belongs to two more performers other than the Deol family. And they are Anupam Kher, as the girl’s father and Mukul Dev as the girl’s elder brother. Anupam Kher is simply too good in the character of Joe Bhaaji. He is comic, he is loud, he is hilarious and yet elegant in his own impeccable style which is another achievement by the veteran actor once again. In fact I really wonder how he manages to sink into the role of a such a comic character so easily on the screen, when in the real life he is so thoughtful and intellectual kind of a learned person. That’s really outstanding as I see it. Accompanying him impressively is Mukul Dev speaking Punjabi so fluently as if he is a regional actor taken from the Punjabi theater. I really doubt that the viewers would even recognize him in his Punjabi getup having long hairs. The interesting thing is that he has only few short one liners or two word dialogues in the film, which work in a great way and make your laugh. I really loved his drunkard character saying many hilarious things in the backdrop which one might miss if he is not watching or listening to him carefully.

Both Dharmendra and Sunny Deol give a very controlled yet effective performance, which remains the highlight of the film. They both are sure going to get all the claps and seeties in their own north belt undoubtedly. Especially their fight scenes together in which Sunny is back as the macho man of GADAR beating the bad men quite similar to the style followed by Chulbul Pandey a few months back. In short Sunny is going to be loved and Dharmendra is going to be cherished by his fans after a long time. Coming to the youngest of the three, Bobby Deol, he gets the maximum attention in the story as the main character for whose love interest, the whole drama is played in the second half. Bobby looks smart and does fine both in the get up of a con-man in the first half and as a Sikh NRI in the second. Though his drinking scenes together with Dharmendra are a bit lengthy and overdone, still their chemistry together is great which surely deserves a watch on the big screen.

In the remaining cast Kulraj Randhawa scores the best looking gorgeous on the screen much better than many famous big names of the Industry. She makes a confident big screen debut in Hindi Films which should sure get her more assignment in the near future. Johny Lever and Sucheta Khanna are great. Nafisa Ali and Amit Mistry make an impact in their brief roles. Emma Brown Garrett, as Sunny’s foreign wife is surprisingly good with her two Sikh Kids. Most of the audiences really laughed out loud whenever one of the kids used to say “Ditto”. Himanshu Malik is ok but Puneet Issar gets wasted having nothing substantial to do in the script. Ajay Devgan as a friendly gesture opens the film with his voice over, which was a nice act done by the actor out of his love and support for the film. Cinematography of YPD is eye-catching capturing the outdoors of both Benaras and Punjab.  But the dialogues and the action are the real jack here which fit in perfectly matching all the Punjabi characters interacting on the screen.

Coming to the biggest weak point of YAMLA PAGLA DEEWANA, it is the music which should have had more Dhol and Punjab in it instead of 2 item numbers (in the bar) and 2 romantic songs. In the whole soundtrack I found only one song “Charhaa De Rang” having the much required melodious notes in it. I really didn’t like the remixed version of the Hit song “Main Jatt Yamla Pagla Deewana” at all and would still prefer to hear its original track only. Other than the soundtrack its a lengthy movie of almost 3 hours of duration which essentially required editing at many places, particularly in its first half. Specifically the romantic songs, the romantic scenes and the drunkard scenes in the first half could be more short and to the point. Moreover, the writers could have thought of another climax moving away from the usual Priyadarshan kind of an ending and the director at least could have shown the role of Police in our system somewhere in its 3 hours (There is no Police anywhere in the movie throughout).

However another merit of the movie I would like to mention here is the appreciable sarcasm incorporated beautifully in its script regarding the passion of Punjab with NRIs and VISAS. I really hope the people living in Punjab would take a note of it while watching this.

In all, it’s entirely a masses entertainment movie on the lines of DABANGG, which should be loved by all fans of Deol family especially the viewers in the North Belt of the country. So, the good run of 2011 continues with YAMLA PAGLA DEEWANA and that’s really a good news for the Industry which hasn’t witnessed many big hits together in the month of January before.

Rating : 3 / 5