De Dana Dan Movie Review

Cast: Akshay Kumar, Suniel Shetty, Katrina Kaif, Paresh Rawal, Sameera Reddy

Director: Priyadarshan

In our school days we were taught nonsense rhymes that were incoherent, jumbled words strung together trendily. "De Dana Dan" is a 150-minute-long nonsense rhyme.

Its power to mock every rule of sensible and intelligent filmmaking simply infuriates and exasperates you to a point of complete breakdown of communication between cinema and art.

The characters are fairly funny to begin with. Akshay Kumar as Archana Puran Singh's slave-cum-driver is the portrait of anguished hilarity. He brings to his part of the servile toy-boy a kind of facile fury that flaunts an easygoing sense of self-deprecating comedy.

Suniel Shetty as Akshay's partner in the nonsense rhyme scheme seems to enjoy the comicality initially...At least he's relaxed until the frames begin to fill up with more characters than Noah's Ark and the spaceship invented to save mankind in Roland Emmerich's "2012" combined.

There are more characters romping in confusion in "De Dena Dan" than in any of Priyadarshan's over-crowded comedies. Two marriageable women (Katrina Kaif and Sameera Reddy) with secret lovers, their harassed fathers, Tinu Anand and Manoj Joshi, an avaricious father-in-law-to-be (Paresh Rawal) and his son (Chunky Pandey), a tart (Neha Dhupia) willing to sleep with anyone who pays. And that includes poor Vikram Gokhale who looks out of place in the boisterous goings-on.

"De Dana Dan" is like a jabbering juggernaut hurling with its fast-talking, constantly-moving army of characters into a region of utter chaos. The screenplay throws forward a gaggle of incoherent gags, which suggest that the melee of characters is more distressed by their financial than emotional condition in life.

Soon we, the audience, cease to figure out what the characters are up to or how they are inter-related, if at all.

Just go with the flow. At times, literally because at the climax we have the characters swimming and spluttering in a flood of water let loose from a bombed terrace tank in a luxury hotel.

Who planted the bomb? Is it the funny hitman Johnny Lever? Or the funnier assassin Asrani roaming around the hotel trying to hard sell a corpse in a coffin?

All this, mind it, is supposed to be the summit of hilarity. The jokes depend almost entirely on the actors' ability to say the atrocious lines as though they mean it. Some like Akshay Kumar and Paresh Rawal succeed. Others don't.

At the end of the day, this comedy of incredible mistaken identities and monstrous errors of judgement coaches us on the meaning of 'slapstick'...literally. Everyone slaps the person closest to him or her regardless of the reason or the repercussion.

Zany or just plain witless? You decide.

If this is the present and future of mainstream Hindi entertainment then we need to do some serious thinking on the way a coterie of super-successful directors and actors have redefined entertainment to a state of utter inanity.

"De Dana Dan" is not a film. It's a series of skits strung together to convey a sense of baggy fun and frivolous entertainment.

Kurbaan Movie Reviews

Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Vivek Oberoi, Dia Mirza, Kirron Kher, Om Puri

Background Score & Music: Salim Merchant, Sulaiman Merchant

Director: Rensil D'Silva

Wake up Yash Raj & Co. and smell the coffee. Your very own blue-eyed boy Karan Johar and his men are now beating you at your own game. Film after film, K Jo is churning out hits while YRF’s list of flops is piling up.
Why?
Because, unlike YRF’s new breed of directors, people at Dharma productions are not paying obsequious homage to their patron with their films. They are all making most of the creative freedom, ushered upon them by Johar and in turn set the cash registers ringing for their boss on Friday.

Just like Ayan Mukerji’s Wake Up Sid, Rensil D'silva's directorial debut Kurbaan lies far way from the typical Johar territory- often marked by hotties prancing around in chiffon saris with SRK, surrounded by countless junior artists. It is a dark love story of a New York based Delhi girl Avantika (Kareena Kapoor), who becomes a victim of professor Ehsaan Khan’s (Saif Ali Khan) 'love jihad'.
After a whirlwind romance, the two tie the knot and move into innocuous Indian neighbourhood in the Big Apple. But everything is not as hunky dory as it seems, Avantika finds it out the hard way from her neighbour in distress, Salma (Nauheed Cysrusi).

What follows next, is a series of incidents that sucks Avantika into a vortex of danger and intrigue. As her life spirals out of control, Avantika realizes that she is just a pawn in Bhai Jaan’s (Om Puri) huge game and no one is to be trusted. Not even Ehsaan. Like a true fanatic he does what he thinks the Lord would do if He knew the facts of the case.

Now her only hope is Riyaz Masood (Vivek Oberoi) and together they strive to save land of the free from another terror catastrophe.

In his 2 hour 40 minutes long thriller, Rensil clearly demonstrates how wisdom becomes nonsense in the mouth of a fanatic. The antagonists here are not rabid mullahs but the suave intellectuals who are blinded by their hate for the infidels. But one should never judge a religion by its nutcases. So, the 35-minute long chilling climax justifiably puts an end to their nefarious designs and upholds the truth that all extremism in the name of religion is bad, no matter what the provocation is.

Kurbaan is not only high on content but a well-packaged product too. Salim-Suleiman’s music and background score adds to the intensity of the film. Anurag Kashyap and Niranjan Iyengar's dialogues are scathing.
The film also sees some of the best performances of the year as well. While Saif as Ehsaan evokes both contempt and empathy, Kareena’s Avantika looks clearly torn between her love and hate for him. Vivek Oberoi also makes a grand comeback as an actor in the film.

It goes without saying that Om Puri clearly excels in his part as a mastermind but it is Kirron Kher who takes the cake away from the quinquagenarian actor. It’s a big, big relief not to see her playing the loud Punjabi mother for once and that too in a Karan Johar flick. Nauheed Cyrusi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda and especially Dia Mirza excel in the cameos.

All in all, Kurbaan is must watch for all those yearning for a sensible cinema. It shows the futility of a fanatic’s version of jihad and reaffirms that the most excellent jihad (struggle) is that for the conquest of self.
source: santabanta.com