De Dana Dan

Cast
Akshay Kumar
Katrina Kaif
Sunil Shetty
Paresh Rawal
Neha Dhupia
Sameera Reddy

Crew
Priyadarshan ... Director
Champak Jain ... Producer
Ratan Jain ... Producer

Hats and caps off to Priyadarshan. Just when we thought that comedy - stifled in Bollywood by the silly slapstick we’re served in the name of humour - is dead, shrouded, coffined and buried, Priyadarshan the saviour strikes form and resurrects it in his latest screwball sit-com De Dana Dan.
Unlike the rib-ticklers that are solely propped on the charm of either Akshay Kumar or Paresh Rawal, in ‘De Dana Dan’, the script and story is the hero. It’s a comedy of errors based on mistaken identities in a mad melee of oddball characters that cross paths inside a hotel in Singapore. The cobweb of confusion is created with such craft that gags keep flying and whizzing by endlessly - left, right, up, down…de dana dan! And you come out of the theatre with every cell of your body giggling with joy.

It’s all about money, honey! Nitin (Akshay Kumar) wants money to free himself from the clutches of his authoritarian maalkin (Archana Puran Singh) and marry his rich GF Anjali (Katrina Kaif). Ram (Sunil Shetty), a courier delivery boy, too wants money to marry Manpreet (Sameera Reddy), daughter of an industrialist. And Harbans Chadda (Paresh Rawal), a serial conman posing as a millionaire, wants to marry his good-for-nothing son (Chunkey Pandey) to any rich girl whose father is willing to open up coffers for dowry.

After their respective lives hit the rock bottom, Nitin and Ram decide to kidnap someone important (not telling who?) to make some easy millions as ransom. But the kidnapping goes wrong as the duo check into a hotel where preparations are underway for Manpreet’s wedding.

Add to this melee a number of screwballs like a testosterone-driven, middle-aged lecher (an appropriately cast Shakti Kapoor) desperately looking for sex, or a nit-wit cop (Sharat Saxena) looking for the conman, or a prostitute (Neha Dhupia) waiting for a client, or an assassin (Johnny Lever) who carries chloroform bottles, or a bumbling waiter (Rajpal Yadav) on the verge of losing his job, or a harried father (Tinnu Anand) out to find his runaway daughter (Katrina), or a local don (Asrani) with a dead body nobody’s willing to take.

It’s a mad, mad world out here in this Singapore hotel.

The best part about ‘De Dana Dan’ is that gags aren’t just mindlessly stitched together but flow out of situations that arise out of mistaken identities. Full credit should go to its crispy script laced with punchy dialogues from Jay Master and full credit to Priyadarshan for executing it with his masterly skill that makes the movie a hell of a rollercoaster ride, leaving the audience doubled up with laughs.

Yet again, Akshay brings a lovable goofiness to his character even though he’s locked inside a wardrobe for a substantial chunk of the second half. Sunil Shetty is okay while Paresh Rawal and Manoj Joshi bring the house down with their remarkable bonhomie. The ladies, Katrina, Sameera and Aditi Govitrikar (as the money hungry wife of Rawal) are more of eye candies, though Neha Dhupia does get to shoot off a few smutty dialogues. The supporting cast chips in with fine performances.

The movie’s pace slackens a bit with the song ‘Paisa’ which, though a hummable ditty, acts as a bump in this joyride. Also the flood in the climax doesn’t add as much to the humour as it could have.

These sores apart, ‘De Dana Dan’ is the best comedy of errors to have come out of Bollywood in a long time. Anyway, it’s much better than the comedy of terror we saw last week.

Go for it. It’s loaded with fun.