Yamla Pagla Deewana 2

Sangeeth Sivan takes over from Sameer Karnik, 2 years after the latter gave us a movie that was in terms of quality, nothing worth writing home about.  However, there were some moments attributed to the lead trio which ensured that the movie didn’t flop.  YPD2 is no different.

Players

When the director duo – as they so proudly proclaim in the titling of the movie – Abbas Mustan come together, then you can expect some really mindless action coming your way for certain. But in the past few movies, they have shown that they can execute the mindlessness with some class and finesse for sure. Race for instance, had a twist within a twist within a twist and pretty soon you were twistier than the Dominoes Twisty Garlic Bread. But much like the Dominoes Twisty Garlic Bread, you went out of the theatre feeling quite good about the manner in which you spent your past 2.5 hours. It would have felt quite similar when you saw, 36 China Town as well. One would have walked out saying – not bad yaar. Decent. Theekh hai. But I think the run of average luck that these two had over the past few years has finally run out on them in a manner of speaking.
And mind you, I am not complaining about the corny dialogues in the movie. Say when the hottest chick in the movie who goes by the name of Shyla or something, in a skimpy swimsuit throws herself @ Charlie Mascarenhas (Abhishekh Bachchan) who keeps his interest limited to a book that she was supposed to deliver. Shyla goes, “Yahaan poori library padi hui hai aur yeh ek book ke peechhe pada hai” (Theres a complete library available for the taking and the moron is interested only in one book). Such corny dialogues are definitely expected in an Abbas Mustan movie. And I am not talking about how there is a disco in St. Petersburg or Moscow or wherever called “House of Rasputin”… er…Abbas Mustan… maaf hai. And I am not talking about the aspect of a random Indian babe (to the Russians I mean. To us she is known as Bipasha Basu OR of late – a random Indian babe) walks in to con a Lt. General of the Russian Army and waltzes in without any security issues and also manages to sing a raunchy Hindi number along the way. Or that 4 Indians almost drown in the frigid waters of Russia and land up comfortably sitting on the ice with little or no fear of hypothermia. All that is completely acceptable and expected of Abbas Mustan.

But what is not acceptable is the really bad finishing. For once, the action sequences seem badly executed. From the first scene of Jr. B stealing a diamond necklace to the really badly finished gold heist sequence from the newer Italian Job (which starred Mark Wahlberg), there was nothing which had the true Abbas Mustan Stamp on it. For a change – and a bad change at that – the pair has given too much emphasis on the insignificant stuff such as the complicated search for Spider which pans all continents with the exception of Antarctica. There are some random charitable reasons such as an orphanage in Shimla or a paraplegic daughter of one of the “Players” – Ronnie (Bobby Deol). Yaar Abbas Bhai – Mustan Bhai – what is this yaar. Non stop action with no sense is your forte. What is this social messaging etc. doing in your mlovie. Players seemed a little to arty for your taste.

And yes, the next time anyone casts Sonam Kapoor, please don’t give her leopard skin leotards and make up that attempts to make her look like Lisbeth Salander (Girl with the dragon tattoo) – she never could, isn’t and cannot come anywhere close. Also, acting school desperately required. Papa is going places but kiddo is going to stay rooted here if there are no drastic changes.

A best possible score of 3 on 10 for this really bad copy of the Italian Job (2003). Watch the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgPQ7_xsm3o

Thank You

He should probably thank his stars that he has a reasonable fan following in this country – enough and more morons who will walk into an AK movie just because its an AK movie. But that’s what we do to stars. Glorify them. Make temples for them. But even the extreme madness that this country has for Bollywood will not be able to save AK this time around. His acting talent or screen presence or whatever you want to call it has definitely reached it’s Nadir. AK – you cannot get worse than this. If you look at it positively, anywhere you go to from here will only be better. Or touch base quickly with Mannapuram Gold Loan – I am sure they will extend your contract for another year or so. I am quite certain that Akshay Kumar’s career with a major cinema house has ended successfully. For any future releases, he will have to trust his own funds or maybe depend on some rich relatives. Maybe Thank You was a test run – partially produced by Twinkle Khanna as per credits.

Thank You is a movie made in extreme bad taste. It once again endorses the concept of a cheating husband and in fact goes one step further by glorifying him. But then again, I guess there are enough and more women in this world who do not mind going back to husbands who have cheated on them. So why not capitalize on the movement (in a manner of speaking). The characters of… or should I say characterless – Raj (Bobby Deol), Yogi (Suniel Shetty) and Vikram (Irrfan Khan) run a business of selling yachts. And if one can describe the word “Tharki” (sex maniac), they would be the ideal examples. The epitomes. Raj’s wife Sanjana (Sonam Kapoor) believes in blind faith and obviously the husband takes as much advantage of that as possible. The other two are married to Maya (Celina Jaitley) and Shivani (Rimi Sen). Maya has already caught Yogi cheating on her and is getting back at him by treating him like a slave – which doesn’t seem to matter much to Yogi as such. And Vikram dominates Shivani as if there is no tomorrow. Things are about to get nasty for the promiscuous trio though thanks to the entry of Kishan (Akshay Kumar) who was responsible for Yogi getting caught.

If you liked the senselessness of the likes of No Entry and No Problem which seem to be reflective of Anees Bazmee’s favourite topic – cheating husbands – then Thank You is exactly the kind of movie that you would like to watch. If you are the more sensible kinds who believes in the concept of true cinema then please do not waste your money on this work that doesn’t have any semblance of direction, acting, screenplay, cinematography, editing and any of the other departments that are required to make a movie. The only one that continues to be worse than this is that sob story that spent a decade in a canister called Milenge Milenge. Thank You comes really close to being a case study at any Film Institute about what a movie should not be. I do wonder what people like Irrfan Khan were doing in this movie. And was definitely disappointed at how Sonam Kapoor crash landed from a curve that was showing signs of going North. As of now her stock has gone south. Maybe she should put the A back in her name. It may just about help. The rest of the cast has anyways not been worth mentioning and will not be. The miracle of course was the Rimi Sen did not speak in Bengali in this movie. The 1 additional point in the score for the movie comes for that and the fact that there are a couple of tracks that are definitely going to be doing their rounds in discos across the country. 2 on 10.

Watch the trailer on http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi226729241/

Yamla Pagla Deewana

This one was what I was really waiting for. After the disaster of their first movie together titled “Apne”, the Deol family probably sat down together to have a serious discussion and decided that the next time they would come together would be for a comedy. Either ways people were laughing at their first attempt. Might as well get them to laugh at what is meant to be laughed at right? The rushes were quite reasonable and I was quite keen to catch up with the movie. So after a 12 hour sleep to recover from the jet lag of spending 32 hours @ either an airport or inside an aircraft and that too without any sleep, I opened skull, left brains in freezer and proceeded towards PVR Mulund to catch an afternoon show of a completely slapstick brainless comedy. Needless to say, I wasn’t disappointed at all – I got what I had expected!!!!


Param Veer Singh Dhillon (Sunny Deol) is a family man to the core. He is married to Mary (Emma Brown) and has 2 kids. His mother, Manto (Nafisa Ali) also stays with them. No points for guessing that they all live in Vancouver, Canedda (read Canada). And if u are a sardar in Canedda, u cannot dream of having a Canadian accent. After all, you are in your 2nd home right? The entire family including the Canadian wife is uncorrupted and not influenced by anything Canadian. Even the wife speaks in Punjabi – so what if it’s a little broken. 100% believable I say. Now, Param has always wanted to go to India to visit his Des (read country - wonder why they all go to Canada if all they want to do is come back?). But Mary will not have anything to do with these dreams. He doesn’t trust India one bit.

The story goes that while Param was very young, his father, Dharam Singh Dhillon (Dharmendra) who is the only person in the world that google cannot locate, is a petty criminal back home and leaves Manto and Param at a very young age. He doesn’t leave alone thought. He carries his 2 month old son, Gajodhar (Bobby Deol – when he gets older that is) and continues his life of petty crime, relieving unsuspecting people of whatever is valuable. One of the Dhillon families friends in Canedda comes home and blows a fuse when he sees Dharam Paaji’s photograph on the wall. He has recently been duped by the father and son duo, in Benras (how many times have people been told not to travel alone to India!!!!!). Now that he knows, Param has to go to Benares to get the two back to Canedda as promised to his mother isn’t it?

Yamla Pagla Deewana, lives upto to everything it promised in the trailers. Corny dialogues such as “Tussi Bade Impotent ho ji” (You are very important) and “Aap Kaise Karte Ho Ji” (How do you do?) and most of all Jat Risky after Whiskey as the icing on the cake. Not to mention the corny background music that plays from every Bobby Deol movie even though there is a fight sequence on. After all, Jab Sunny fight kar raha ho toh Bobby romance hi karega na??? And then there are three brilliant fight sequences featuring Sunny Paaji’s Dhai Kilo ka Haath (2.5 kg fists), the first of which causes little or no damage to any surrounding furniture. Just when u begin to think that things would be different, the next sequence shows a beer bar being single handedly crashed to pulp but guess who – Sunny Paaji. Even Dharam Paaji decides to show his might in the climax sequence. And I must also say that the three on screen together has some solid chemistry. So much that they dance better than the girls in both the so called item numbers in the movie (if they can qualify to be called that). And did I mention Bobby’s love interest in the movie played by Kulraj Randhawa, who is a photographer from the Punjab and is making a coffee table book on Benaras and expects to do that with her camera always on full zoom and wearing a pair of really short shorts roaming the streets of Benares. All believable hai ji. Not to worry. Samir Karnik’s direction continues on the lines of his previous debacles. Some guys never learn. Thanks to our trio, the movie will not flop. Entertaining definitely but follow instructions about brain as mentioned earlier. I give it 4 on 10.

And if you haven’t seen the trailer, here it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY1wOMEDBc4&feature=fvsr