Katrina Kaif and Akshay Kumar in De Dana Dan
Director: Priyadarshan
Producer: Ratan Jain, Champak Jain
Music Director: Pritam
Star Cast: Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, Suniel Shetty, Paresh Rawal, Neha Dhupia, Sameera Reddy
De Dana Dan is the most illogical film director Priyadarshan has ever made. It revolves around 26 or 27 characters, who faced with bizarre situations in a hotel, shout at the top of their voice and do the most weird acts like flying to make you laugh. Yet, what the director needs to be complimented for is that despite making such a weird film, he is able to make you burst into laughter.
The film also doesn’t boast of any logic or story to begin with. It only has a lot of characters, who keep you engaged for around 3 hours and promise a dose of non-stop laughter and entertainment.
This is a story of three men in Singapore, who desperately want to become rich.
First is Nitin (Akshay Kumar), who works as a butler, cook, driver, watchman and gardener for a rich industries lady from Singapore [Archana Puran Singh). Nitin desires to be rich and marry Anjali [Katrina Kaif], who not only loves him but also helps him financially.
Nitin also has a best friend Ram [Suniel Shetty], who also came to Singapore to become rich but had to become a courier delivery boy to support himself financially. Just like Nitin, Ram also loves a rich girl Manpreet (Sameera Reddy) but knows that unless he earns a lot of money, he cannot marry someone like her, who belongs to a very rich family.
Third is this smart businessman (Paresh Rawal) who wants to marry his son (Chunky Pandey) to a rich girl so that she can bring a lot of dowry. He also meets Manpreet’s parents at a party and tries to arrange his sons marriage with Manpreet by introducing himself as a rich businessman.
Not being able to earn a good amount despite several attempts, when Nitin and Ram fail to improve their financial standing, they come up with a plan to kidnap someone and ask for a ransom.
But even the kidnapping plan goes out of control and Nitin and Ram go and hide in a hotel. They are not even safe in there as they find that Manpreet’s wedding reception is being held in the same hotel and people recognize them. Soon, they are joined by a motley set of characters including a Chinese Don [Asrani], a hired assassin [Johny Lever], a ACB police inspector [Sharat Saxena], a club dancer [Neha Dhupia], an ambassador [Vikram Gokhale], a young frustrated double crossing wife [Aditi Govitrikar], a letch [Shakti Kapoor] and a drunken waiter [Rajpal Yadav].
De Dana Dan carries the typical trademark of Priyadarshan. But, alongside, this is a very unpredictable film, which is very entertaining and energetic and at places lethargic and boring too. Though at places, while watching the film, you feel you are watching one of the earlier movies of Priyadarshan, on a whole, it is an interesting movie that keeps you tied to your seat. Priyadarshan has managed the film well with his directio, but he could have done better with a little less number of characters. So many characters were certainly not needed and tend to confuse you a bit.
Talking of people behind the camera, Pitam’s music, K. Ahambaram’s cinematography and Jay Master dialogue are good.
As far as acting is concerned, Sunil Shetty walks away with all the applauds for his natural acting. Though, Akshay also impresses you, it is disappointing to see that he disappears from the screen for about an hour and that makes his fans believe that they haven’t had enough of him despite he being projected as the main lead actor. The same can be said for the two ladies Katrina Kaif and Sameera Reddy, whose roles are also too small to be talked of. Of course, if you are only going to see the movie just to laugh then this is the film for you with the combine trio of Paresh Rawal, Johny Lever and Archana Puransingh giving you an overdose of laughter. The other actors including Neha Dhupia, Manoj Joshi, Asrani, Vikram Gokhale and Sharat Saxena have done justice to their respective roles.
On a whole, rather than being a Bollywood movie, this is a bollywood chaos, which you will like only if you wish to watch a typical masala movie. Alongside, if you want to enjoy De Dana Dan to its maximum, you must leave your intellectual capabilities back home and just relax and have a great time.
Image Source: oneindia
