De Dana Dan Movie Reviews

Be forewarned. DE DANA DAN is the most bizarre film from the maharaja of laughathons, Priyadarshan. Not even in your wildest dream you'd think that Priyadarshan would place almost an entire film in a hotel and have its entire cast, comprising of 26 [or is it 27?] characters, most of them weirdos, interacting with each other. Brings back memories of BLAME IT ON THE BELLBOY? May be!

Blame it on the director, but they're mostly missing in action: Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif and Suniel Shetty. And it's hard to fathom why! Why in moviedom's name would a filmmaker sign the three most thoroughbreds of comedy and waste them away with a vanishing act? Haven't the threesome -- Akshay, Suniel and Paresh -- passed the litmus test at the box office and given contemporary cinema some of its best comedies

Akshay Kumar is serious when he says that you might miss the link if you blink in this comic caper. There are so many characters, subplots and U-turns in this film that it might leave you a bit dizzy. Nitin (Akshay) and Ram (Sunil) are two friends trapped in their bleak jobs wanting to make overnight fortune and elope with their respective girlfriends Anjali (Katrina) and Manpreet (Sameera). Not knowing how to go about making their destiny

De Dana Dan almost marks a decade of the end of the sensitivity and sensibility of director Priyadarshan who switched on to commercially driven comedy capers post the success of Hera Pheri. De Dana Dan also almost marks a decade of the widespread acceptability that the slapstick genre has gained in scarcity of sane comedies. Going by its casting, do not expect De Dana Dan to be a sequel, tribute or extension of the Hera Pheri series.

An hour into ‘De Dana Dan’, you are at the exact same point you were the last time Priydarshan got a bunch of people to chase their tails in an enclosed space: struggling to keep your eyes open. Essentially, Priyadarshan makes two kinds of films. One creates high drama, with the help of a deeply-saturated canvas, filled with lush colours, flamboyant figures, and large gestures. This can result in the spectacularly good (‘Virasat’)

In De Dana Dan Johnny Lever plays a hitman named Kala. He sits down in a coffee shop and introduces himself to someone: "hello, I’m Kala. The guys says: toh maine kab bola gora hai. This low-IQ, college canteen humour made me laugh, and it is as good as it gets in the film. The movie starts out funny but gradually becomes more and more exhausting. The film sticks to what seems to have become the standard formula

They couldn't have come up with a more inappropriate title for the new Akshay Kumar starrer than De Dana Dan, a term usually used to signify something quick. The thing is, Priyadarshan's latest comedy is anything but quick. At two hours and 40 minutes, it's a laboriously long, patience-testing exercise in idiocy about some 20-odd characters stuck in a five-star hotel where mistaken identities and misunderstandings result in loud arguments

Sanjay Gupta copies from Korean films. David Dhawan lifts bits and pieces from Bolly, Holly, Tolly, Molly, Kolly…. Priyadarshan rehashes his own films. Just as the sarson ka khet signals a Yash Chopra film and Karan Johar’s films are known by the melodrama, a Priyadarshan film can be smelt a mile away. Here are six reasons how De Dana Dan is just another product from the P-factory.

De Dana Dan will almost certainly end up giving you a headache. Unless you revel in comedy where every character shrieks and screams, women are spoken of in a degrading manner and loud decibel levels give you a kick, this one's not for you. Not that the film does not have its moments. But when in a 2 hours, 45 minutes movie you barely chuckle a couple of times and laugh out loud once, there's reason to worry.

In Priyadarshan's latest film, Akshay Kumar, playing a miserable indentured chauffeur, whines about the state of his ragged uniform. He speaks of how the belt is held up by a pyjama drawstring, how the button is hanging on for dear life, and how there's really nothing holding it together. He may well have been speaking of the film itself, a loud, overlong collection of slapstick subplots that would have nothing in common

When a film titled De Dana Dan is ‘filmed’ by Priyadarshan, and stars the familiar gang of gag masters, you can expect meaningless madness which is expected to crack you up and turn a neat trick at the box office in the name of mass entertainment. I doubt this one will though. De Dana Dan is an extra loud and grating experience, with everyone trying a bit too hard at that same mish mash of sex, money & marriage comedy