Priyadarshan can barely spell flicks patently based on couple of things – either a raw offbeat drama or silliest comedies. Exactly, the auteur goes shilly-shallied over ‘De Dana Dan’ and there’s nothing special you can look out for.
Indeed, it’s really appalling to witness the biggies – Akki, Sunil, Katrina, Paresh delineated with flimsy roles. Being candid to oneself is all about avoiding this film and opt for something else.
And of course, if you’re genuinely planning to kill your time by watching this flick, we’re sorry – the film doesn’t meddle around on with such aspects. How long Priyan will engage himself churning out such irksome flicks? Perhaps, you’ll walk out of theatres with such questions arisen.
Well for Akshay Kumar, the actor really has a bad year with all his film failing to be brimmed with Midas-touch. And indeed, his mantra of pair-up with Katrina Kaif doesn’t work out this time.
Nitin Bankar (Akshay Kumar) is a personal butler, cook, driver, watchman, gardener to a wealthy female industrialist (Archana Puran Singh) in Singapore. Like any young man, Nitin too, dreams of a better life, but misfortune is his constant companion and his reality is his job under Archana. He desperately wants to become rich and marry the love of his life, Anjali Kakkad (Katrina Kaif), who supports him financially.
Ram Mishra (Suneil Shetty), Nitin's best friend also came to Singapore with the dream of striking it rich, but ended up a courier delivery man. He falls for Manpreet Oberoi (Sameera Reddy), but her high society parents will never approve of marriage, not unless Ram has lots and lots of money.
In the midst of all this, is Harbans Chadda (Paresh Rawal), a shrewd businessman, is looking for ways to multiply his income and avoid his debtors. He decides the best way would be to marry his son off to a girl whose parents can give him a large dowry. He is introduced to Manpreet's parents at a Diwali function and is impressed by their social status. He introduces himself as a well-established businessman, impresses them and they decide to get Manpreet and Harbans' son (Chunky Pandey) married.
What unfolds next is series of comedic bizarre regrettably spoiled with establishment of more characters.
Unfortunately, none of the actors get a proper footage and much specifically in the latter part, every actors are found disembodied to their roles. Akshay Kumar gears on with his prototyped performance much like Hera Pheri series and fails terribly to impress us. Sparring not more than 3 sequences, the actor has nothing to showcase. Ditto to Sunil Shetty: the actor stumbles down half the way in latter part with lots of actors being introduced in second half. Its over-the-top performance by Paresh Rawal and he strives to work back the magic with Akki-Sunil combo. Katrina Kaif and Sameera Reddy have no prominence and maybe their glam-factors engrains to certain extent.
The silly dialogues, mediocre slapstick comedy tracks and ludicrous aspects will send you annoyed. Technically, the film lacks finesses. None of the songs except Paisa are worthy heeding to… Cinematography is okay.
On the whole, ‘De Dana Dan’ isn’t actually a comedy entertainer. Rather, it can be entitled as a below average slapstick show that has nothing substantial over script, screenplay or dialogues.
Verdict: Falls short of expectations
Rating: **
by RAKHI