Yamla Pagla Deewana Review By Komal Nahta

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.