Star cast: Suny Deol, Bobby Deol, Dharmendra, Kulraj Randhawa, Anupam Kher, Johny Lever, Nafisa Ali.
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Plot: Sunny Deol arrives in Varanasi from Canada to take his crook father and brother, Dharmendra and Bobby Deol, back to his mother. However, when Dharmendra refuses to let go of Bobby, Sunny decides to go to Patiala to help Bobby in his quest for love.
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What’s Bad: The very routine script; the dull first half.
Verdict: Yamla Pagla Deewana is a mass entertainer. It will do well in single-screen cinemas but average in multiplexes.
Loo break: Several in the first half.
Watch or Not? Masses, go for it surely! Classes, go for it only if you can leave your brains at home.
One Up Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. and Top Angle Productions’ Yamla Pagla Deewana (UA) is a comedy about a disintegrated family. Paramveer Singh Dhillon (Sunny Deol) is a Sardar who lives in Canada with his mother (Nafisa Ali), Canadian wife, Mary (Emma Brown Garett), and two little sons, Karam (Nikunj Pandey) and Veer (Raj). His father, Dharam Singh (Dharmendra), lives in Varanasi (India) with his younger brother, Gajodhar (Bobby Deol), who dotes on his father and doesn’t know that the father had run away with him when he was a little child, leaving the mother and Paramveer Singh to fend for themselves.
Years later, Paramveer Singh comes to India in search of his father and brother with the knowledge that they are fraudsters. He meets them soon and although Dharam Singh soon understands – and acknowledges – that Paramveer is his elder son, Gajodhar is unaware of this fact.
Gajodhar falls in love with Sahiban (Kulraj Randhawa), a girl from an orthodox family in Patiala, when he meets her in Varanasi. Even as their romance is still in its infancy, Sahiban’s over-protective brothers beat up Gajodhar as they don’t approve of the relationship. Dharam then pleads with Paramveer to help Gajodhar get Sahiban.
Watch this space to find out how Yamla Pagla Deewana fares at the box-office.
Paramveer and Gajodhar (in disguise as a turbaned Sardar), both posing as NRIs, travel to Patiala and meet Sahiban’s crazy and NRI-obsessed brothers. Although Paramveer tries hard to offer Gajodhar’s hand in marriage, Sahiban’s eldest brother, Joginder Singh (Anupam Kher), selects Paramveer as the prospective groom. Though he is already married, Paramveer is prevented by Gajodhar from declining the marriage proposal with the intention that he (Gajodhar) would elope with Sahiban before she can be married off to Paramveer.
Paramveer and Gajodhar shift into a house belonging to Joginder Singh in Patiala as the marriage is just a few days away. Soon, dad Dharam Singh joins them. Before long, Mary and the two kids also reach Patiala from Canada. What follows thereafter is mayhem and madness, what with Paramveer Singh trying to wriggle out of the marriage proposal so that Gajodhar can get his beloved, but Sahiban’s brothers being sold on Paramveer as the groom. There is also a track of Minty Tejpal (Punit Issar), the sworn enemy of Joginder Singh.
Story and Screenplay
Debut-making writer Jasvinder Singh Bath makes it amply clear right in the beginning that the film lays very little emphasis on logic. Having done that, he weaves a screenplay around a routine story, which tries to add as much comedy and humour as possible. While he doesn’t quite succeed in the first half, which is boring, he makes up for it after interval. Even in the second half, there is not much effort to give the audience a smooth-flowing drama. Rather, gags and funny incidents are what keep the audience interest alive after interval. Since the base of the drama is a disintegrated family and Paramveer Singh’s attempt to make it a united one, there are a few scenes which try to move the viewer emotionally. But the sentiments fail to touch the heart. What does work in the emotional part of the drama is Paramveer Singh’s genuine efforts to unite the family.
The writer has also added a fairly good dose of action in the drama and because it is a comedy, even the action and stunt scenes are more comical in nature than tension-ridden. The gags, funny anecdotes and fun-laden action work very well, especially for the masses and single-screen audiences. The entire track of Poli (Sucheta Khanna) is not just funny but also very cute. Equally funny are the anecdotes involving Binda (Amit Mistry). Paramveer Singh speaking in English to impress, on the first occasion, Sahiban’s stupid brothers and, on the second occasion, the voting public is very funny. But since he speaks in English, the comedy (inherent in the English words he uses) would be lost on the masses who don’t understand English. The climax, of course, is quite a laugh riot.
On the minus side are the absence of chartbusting songs, lack of novelty in and cohesiveness of script as also several dull portions in the first half. Of course, the complete absence of logic may irritate the multiplex audience but because the writer sets the tone for the illogical drama right at the start of the film, this absence of logic can’t be termed as a flaw.
Star Performances
Sunny Deol is the life of the film and does a fine job. He looks every inch the rough and tough Sardar he plays and he performs very well. Bobby Deol is average in the sequences in Varanasi but his portions of Patiala, when he is disguised as a turbaned Sardar, are nice. Dharmendra is fair and although age shows on his face and in his body movements, he does manage to hold his own. Kulraj Randhawa gets hardly any scope and doesn’t impress. Nafisa Ali is okay. Anupam Kher acts ably. Johny Lever leaves a mark. Punit Issar does what is required of him in a brief role. Mukul Dev is quite good. Sucheta Khanna excels. Amit Mistry is fabulous. Emma Brown Garett is effective and her Hindi pronunciations are enjoyable. Nikunj Pandey and Raj are adorable. Himanshu Malik, Digvijay Rohildas, Krip Suri, Gurbachan and Lokesh Tilakdhari lend the required support.
Direction, Music & Editing
Samir Karnik’s direction is fairly nice. Had he concentrated more on the script, at least in the pre-interval portion, the film would’ve turned out to be a more wholesome experience. All the same, his narration and Bath’s gags do evoke laughter post-interval. The canvas and the look of the film, however, leave something to be desired. Music needed to be much better as hit songs could’ve added greatly to the drama. ‘Tinku jiya’ (music by Anu Malik) is a fairly nice number. The ‘Charha de rang’ song (music: Nouman Javaid) is also quite nice. The title song (borrowed from Pratiggya; music by Laxmikant Pyarelal) is, of course, the best number and holds appeal even today.
Kabir Lal’s camerawork is good. Analarasu’s stunts are eye-filling. Sanjoy Chowdhary’s background music is okay. Editing (Mukesh Thakur) is far from being sharp. Sets (Jeetendra Kava) are dull.
The Last Word
On the whole, Yamla Pagla Deewana is a mass entertainer for the single-screen audiences. It will do well in single-screen cinemas but average in multiplexes. A couple of distributors who’ve paid unreasonably high prices may lose part of their investments but those losses will be less than the profits made by the producers.
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