De Dana Dan Movie REVIEWS - POST HERE - Page 3

Akshay Kumar plays down-on-his-luck servant boy Nitin Bankar, who can't take any more humiliation from his tyrant boss, and finally conspires with his buddy to kidnap her beloved pooch and demand a ransom. The dog, as it turns out, is smarter than the men. He escapes from their hands, but the police believe that Nitin has been kidnapped.

Don't ask how this situation leads to the one in the hotel, but it does. There's a wedding happening, a murder attempted, a prostitute being solicited, and lots of money changing hands. Eventually, it ends with a bomb exploding in the water tank and a flood - think Titanic here – gutting the entire hotel.

In the tradition of many recent low-brow comedies from the same director, De Dana Dan is cheerfully dumb and doesn't aspire for anything more than cheap laughs. The film's first half is dreadfully dull, and the second only marginally better.

Rajpal Yadav as a corrupt waiter, and Johnny Lever as a bumbling hitman are the two bright spots in this annoying ensemble that includes talented actors like Paresh Rawal, Vikram Gokhale and Archana Puran Singh who pretty much spend the entire film yelling at the top of their lungs. Neha Dhupia scores with a winning turn as the hot-headed hooker who just wants to get her money and leave.

The film's leading man, Akshay Kumar, sportingly goes along with the silliness, but he's done all of this many times before. In the film's second half, he's locked up in a closet for about 40 minutes, leaving the rest of the cast to carry on the show. How you wish you could hide somewhere too, or slip into a coma even – anything really to avoid watching the rest of this drivel.

Over the years one has lowered one's expectations considerably when going in to watch a Priyadarshan comedy. De Dana Dan is no different.

I'm going with one-and-a-half out of five for director Priyadarshan's De Dana Dan; carry ear plugs with you, or a Saridon. Or both. A migraine is guaranteed.

Rating: 1.5 / 5

Originally posted by: -Crystal-

Thank u for all the reviews divs and everyone else!

LOL mixed reviews by the critics lol but againw who cares about the criritcs when its an akki movie hahahahha i cant wait to watch this movie hope it makes me a laugh a lot!

woow the opening day was good keep it up DDD want this movie to do well for akkikat specially akki his movies latelty have been big flops expect KI which was a big hit!

Originally posted by: -Crystal-

^urmmmm no KI was a very big hit it wasnt average..!

DDD looks awesome hopefully it well be a big hit!

Priyadarshan [ Images ], refusing as always to call himself a director -- 'filmed by,' proclaim his credits -- attempts to stitch together this ragtag quilt in his usual style, ending up with a stupidly elaborate monstrosity.

All manner of morons -- philanderers, dognappers, murderers, hookers, marriagable daughters and dumb-waiters -- congregate in a plush Singapore hotel, and chaos ensues. Big surprise.

There is much slamming of doors and misunderstandings involving rooms, and all is what you'd expect until we get to the climactic washout, which involves an undoubtedly impressive, albeit unnecessary, hotel flood.

Yet the film has been a damp squib right from the get go. The flaccid first half never quite recovers, and while the second half musters up a few genuine moments of mirth -- mostly because Manoj Joshi's face turns positively scarlet in anger -- it's too cruelly long to really help things. Also one suspects those rare second-half laughs occur simply because one is mindnumbed into submission.

Akshay takes the safe route and spends most of the film locked in a cupboard; Paresh Rawal [ Images ] might have been funny had he delivered one single line without screaming; Katrina Kaif [ Images ] is reduced to crawling on the floor so Rajpal Yadav [ Images ] can trip over her; Shakti Kapoor plays *cough* a letch; Johnny Lever isn't altogether awful and Asrani gets a couple of laughs.

The only relatively pleasant surprises are Neha Dhupia [ Images ] looking startlingly yummy and the usually punctilious Vikram Gokhale being kicked, insulted and leapt upon -- the last bit by the aforementioned Ms Dhupia, just in case you were wondering.

Those are indeed the high points, so to speak. You've been warned.

Rediff rating: 1.5/5