De Dana Dan (2009)

Memorable, crazy movie

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

With the team joins hands back again, the expectations are nothing short of yet another "Hera Pheri". The team needed a desperate hit to redeem themselves from the recent spate of flops in everybody's kitty. Needless to say the pressure surmounts and result is "De Dana Dan". De Dana Dan gives the opportunity to see all the Priyan's regulars under one roof. There is little something for everybody and to what extent the character is justified is a debate for another day. The laugh-riot owing to comedy of errors bear uncanny resemblance to Priyan's earlier outing "Hungama". There are streaks of "One Two Three" (under-rated, IMO). The writer should be applauded for being able to weave the intricate complex mesh of sub-plots and integrate it into the main storyline. On the same note, the director deserves brownie points for being able to cross the deliverable milestone. No doubt there is breadth in terms of sub-plots, however the downside is lack of depth in it. By the time a character and the sub-plot sinks into the audience, the story moves on. And when the tributaries join in, the confusion starts to seep in. In terms of performance the lead performers are do a fine job ie. Akki, Paresh, Suniel, Katrina in descending order of of screen time. Sameera Reddy hardly leaves an impression. The supporting cast as mentioned earlier are Priyan's regulars and seem under-utilised. But hey-ho, everybody seemed to have enjoyed the overseas holiday during the shoot. On that note, it seems basing the story in Malaysia was an overkill. Lets not forget "Hera Pheri" worked because of the simplicity which the audience were instantly able to connect. Pritam's songs deserve a special mention, great foot-tapping numbers are justified adequately with their picturisation. Finally Priyan could have come up with a better climax rather the water- shed.

He had a couple of decent flicks, Malamaal Weekly and Garam Masala were his best movies-- best for his typical situational/slap-stick comedy genre anyways.. This one is simply flat from the first 10 minutes onwards all the way to the end. It is utterly predictable, most of the comedians are completely under utilized. Particularly Paresh Rawal, he hardly had anything comedic other than a few lines here and there. I am not sure why some reviews say the movie is hard to follow, may be they watched bits and pieces, anybody over 10 should have no problem following whats going on, not only that, most can predict what will happen next.For a while you could count on Priyadarshan movies to be decent comedies, not any more.

Film by film, the stories and the comedies of Priyadarshan are getting complicated but still looks similar. Especially, in the endings when all the actors in the movie end up being at one place and it becomes all harakiri.The level of comedy movies has gone drastically down this year. All the Best was well below par and so is this one, probably a little better than All The Best. I just can't seem to comprehend after seeing some of the comments made by the users that they laughed for 2 hours 45 minutes. If someone can laugh on Sunil Shetty's and Sameera Reddy's scenes, then they seem to be brothers with Navjot Singh Sidhu.The movie actually had a very good script and a good screen play but it lacked good comedy in most of the scenes. It was getting to predictable. After a long time, Johnny Lever has delivered to his potential. Akshay Kumar was good but not amazing and moreover he was kept out of the movie for almost an hour because of the script. Paresh Rawal had a good role but then again, monotonous.All in All, its a 5-6/10 movie...

One simple question to start with……In the current scenario, are we always supposed to see a Bollywood Comedy leaving our thinking brains at home?......Really fed up with this phrase often used to praise mindless comedies, I was completely taken back by the treatment given by Priyadarshan to his latest script-less movie called "De Dana Dan". Once again taking his inspirations from the English flicks, "Screwed" (2000) "Blame It on The Bellboy" (1992) and "The Towering Inferno" (1974), the director delivers a completely over the top and loud movie which miserably fails to impress the viewers in any of its department.With more than 20 characters in the script, played by all well known actors of the Industry, the project has too many things to deal with. It really remains a questionable decision that even after the presence of the famous "Hera Pheri" comic trio, what was the need of roping in almost everyone related to comedy genre in the industry ranging from the veterans Asrani & Shakti Kapoor to the currently famous Johny Lever & Rajpal Yadav. Priyadarshan may have successfully dealt with them all in few of his previous projects but this time he simply slips disastrously.Storyline has never been the major highlight of a Priyadarshan project. But in "De Dana Dan", he very daringly treats the story requirement of a movie in the most careless manner. Starting with few good scenes moving around a Kidnapping plot, the movie starts going into various opposite directions with a desperate plea to make you laugh. Post interval it looks like the director and the whole unit somehow lost their original script in the transit and just went on with the shooting as per their outdoor schedule.After an hour the movie has nothing related to a story and it just has all its characters confusingly following each other with mistaken identities. Collectively living in the same five star hotel, everyone keeps barging into unknown rooms trying to create some hilarious scenes for the viewers. And the most surprising part is that post intermission the biggest star of the movie, Akshay Kumar simply vanishes from the screen for more than half an hour. He gets locked in a closet and remains there for a good amount of time. But what was the use of locking your most sellable star like that. "De Dana Dan" has loads of absurdities in its narration, which fail to convince even if you take them as a part of a brainless comedy flick. For instance, a full grown man (Akshay Kumar) has been kidnapped but the whole Indian community (in Singapore) and the entire media is searching for a kid instead, because that is the only photograph available of the kidnapped person. In the climax the top floor water reservoir of a more than 30 story hotel gets exploded due to a bomb. And that shockingly brings a major flood like situation in the entire multistory building with everything floating in the heavy water flow. In fact the silly watery sequence hilariously resembled the one recently seen in "Tum Mile".Performance wise this is a perfect example of a film with the most numbers of stars, where not even one makes his presence felt in the end. For the first time ever, I found Paresh Rawal, hamming with his intentional Punjabi accent. The viewers are sure going to miss the cult Paresh Rawal act of his previous hit comedies. Akshay Kumar is not entirely there in the movie. He starts off with some good scenes with Archna Puran Singh, but later gets lost in the overcrowded star-cast. Not using him as per his much applauded comic timing is entirely the fault of his director. Suniel Shetty does his act with an unconcerned ease and he seems to be included only to complete the famous comedy trio.Both Katrina Kaif & Sameera Reddy can count their major scenes on one hand. They only contribute in the film as its female lead and nothing else. In comparison, Neha Dhupia makes a better impact in her few moments on the screen. Archana Puran Singh shouts more and acts less. Aditi Gowariker once again proves that she is better model. Shakti Kapoor repeats his sex maniac act. Asrani, Tinnu Anand & Manoj Joshi are routine, but Chunkey Pandey, Rajpal Yadav and Johny Lever are simply wasted in their unimportant roles. Sharat Saxena & Vikram Ghokhle are miscast as they simply do not belong to the comedy genre.Pritam's music is not outstanding as expected. But the RDB track "Paisa Paisa" is a major hit which also has its own history in the Punjabi Music Industry. The track was the opening song of the Debut Album of Manak-E released few years back, which had music by RDB and was also promoted well with a music video on the leading Punjabi channels. It was indeed quite thoughtful of both RDB and Akshay to use the song with the same singer in the promotional campaign of the movie. However as usual, all the songs are inserted in the script without any specific need. Background score by Salim-Suleman is energetic and Cinematography is fine as per the requirement of the subject but the film tends to go over length due to its bizarre climax.On the whole, it's just another instance of better promotion and poor content. Few weeks before, I could understand the success of "Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani" (though I personally rated it quite low) as it had a worth praising act by Ranbir Kapoor, good songs and some hilarious scenes with mass appeal, but if "De Dana Dan" goes on to become a big Hit then I really fear what kind of projects we are going to get in the near future.And lastly one sincere request for the director, who gave us the cult "Hera Pheri"……..Please take a break and re-invent yourself on priority basis…!