De Dana Dan Movie Review : Comedy on chloroform
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De Dana Dan
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Sunil Shetty, Neha Dhupia, Ratan Jain
Direction: `Filmed’ by Priyadarshan
Rating: Two stars
Chloroform is his norm. This hired killer places a wet napkin under his victim’s nostrils but knocks himself out, too, in the process. Distress. Johnny Lever, popping his eyes out of their sockets, has just goofed up the to-be-killed-guy’s photo docket. Haw haw.
A five-star’s waiter helps himself to the whisky tumblers and savoury starters to be delivered for room service. Rajpal Yadav he, and quite tee hee.
And a goldie oldie, with his sexy wife, is pretty boldie. Paresh Rawal goes pant-pant, huff-huff. Hyuk nyuk.
In fact, Lever-Yadav-Rawal keep the kinky kettle boiling for director Priyadarshan’s reunion of the male leading cast of Hera Pheri. No sequel, prequel or postquel, quite curiously De Dana Dan doesn’t assign sufficient footage to either Akshay Kumar or Sunil Shetty. Thank the lord, for the latter’s minimalism actually. He continues to be strictly oak. Eesh.
Sneeze aachhoo a couple of times and you might even miss out on Katrina Kaif, there only to exude the bimbettni quotient. Instead in the vein of the director’s Malaamal Weekly, this one goes ananas over its seasoned supporting players, even shoving the rarely seen thespian Vikram Gokhale (looking humungous, alas) into the fold. The less carped about the incorrigibly lechy Shakti Kapoor, the better. No zing in his stings.
As it turns out, DDD is a punishing snoozefest in the first-half its excessive length of some two-hours-40-minutes. Indeed you have to pinch yourself hard to keep your eyes half open in the pre-interval section. Totally Zzzzz-grade.
In the event if you’re late, very late, for this situational com-pom, not to worry. You won’t have missed much except 400 winks maybe. Mercifully, the tempo picks up halfway in this mix-yap-yap located in a Singapore “Hawtel” (pronunciation theirs). Zounds, its logo is shown constantly, presumably for discounted location rent – but honestly after witnessing the malarkey, only a miracle would entice you to check in there. Despair.
Anyway, count some 12 characters on the scene who are literally toppling over one another, once even as- four-men-on-top -of-one another to evoke a chhee-chhee Dostanasque comment.
Such asides apart, it seems the reason for the ceaseless farce is Akshay Kumar’s urgent need to get away from his tormentful boss (Archana Puran Singh, writhing, wriggling). She kicks butt (his), loves her dog ‘Mulchandji’ perversely and reduces Butt Boy to a nattering ninny. In collusion with Sunil Shetty, Butt seriously kidnaps the dog, and expects a huge pay-off. Oof.
The plot is incomprehensible beyond that point, cutting to the discounted hotel where a sangeet ceremony is on for..gasp..a dehydrated Chunky Panday and sulky Sameera Reddy. They seem quite remade for each other, but the screenplay sends the senior cast into a right royal tizzy . That’s fizzy only occasionally, at long last leading to a climax that’s a combo of the Titanic and The Poseidon Adventure. All the cast has to swim, drown, gulp, slide through corridors, look more distraught than all the loonies of It’s a Mad Mad Mad World and Kate Winslet-Leonardo Dicaprio bundled together. What to do? Some love stories have flood on them.
Admittedly, the water-gush scenes are technically skilful, far more detailed and impressive than the ones endured lately in Tum Mile.
In effect, then, the finale and the stray funny moments here amount to some 10 to 15 minutes which are worth a ticket-le-ke-dekko.
Yet, you can’t help wondering about the number of small, sensible films that could have been made on the kind of budget that must have been squandered here. Priyadarshan would vouch for that himself after the issue-centric Kanchivaram which is more than likely to be remembered as a far more momentous achievement in a career stretching over 25 years.
Pritam, yeah Pritam again, hammers out an ordinary score. Sabu Cyril’s set deco is uneven. The cinematography is overlit. Some shots have distracting elements like a girl fiddling around with a cellphone in the foreground. And the dialogue is cornball; Vikram Gokhale as a diplomat is equated to the good old sturdy Ambassador car. Puhlease!
Of the cast, Venus producer Ratan Jain fetches up to look more nervous than a struggler before an audition camera.Akshay Kumar evidently needs a break from such goofball gambols.
Of the heroines, Neha Dhupia as a couldn’t-care-a-damn call girl is the best of the female population here. Lever-Yadav-Rawal do go over the top. All of them are repetitive but at least they do it competently.. which is more than what you can say about De Dana Dan, a comedy in search of a hocus focus.
Tags: De Dana Dan, De Dana Dan Movie Review, Movie Review
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Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Khalid Sir is doing what he loves freely without and ‘payroll’ and ‘pressure’ at PFC.. Tearing apart junky films and appreciating rare ones…
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some love stories have flood on them…..awesome….
Great going Khalid sir……
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so we have a DDD ad banner on the films review page which actually rips it apart. funny
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Hope eros people dont see this
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2:40 mins…. thats 2 much
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Kudos to Khalid Mohammed for using someone else’s line and presenting it as his own. Just as you were assured about his further inability to stoop down any further, he achieves new highs. Nighs.
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Mr.Khalid,
I have been following your reviews for a long time. I feel that most of the time you have a pre-determined mindset to rip the movie apart in your own sarcastic way and you actually watch the movie with this mind-set and instead of enjoying the movie, you constantly think of how to innovatively write a review by exposing all the flaws instead of trying to enjoy the movie as a normal audience. Because, before reading your review, I sort of know what to expect from it.
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sorry Johnny,
Rarely have I ever come across a film my opinion of which did not match that of what Khalid writes. He has saved me god knows how many thousands. And there are at least 25 of my friends who swear by his opinion having learnt it the hard way.
Yes he has a fetish to tear apart with gay abandon most of the films but he is an expert and knows best.
The reason why different people enjoy different films varies from background , to grooming, to maturity and also exposure to good films.
Today we have forgotton to respect expertise and with the freedom and anonymity that net offers us go hammer and tongs at people who are naturally more accomplished than us.
While I am not suggesting that we must worship them , perhaps a little respect and less disdainful language will be in order
warm regards
phantom
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Completley, absolutley agree Jonny Gaddar. Khalid does go with a mindset to find faults. This is no way to review a movie. Every movie is not made to be a classic. Movies are made with different purposes and different approaches. You have to align yourself as per the type of the movie, try to see what the director is upto and then gauge ho far he has succeeded. I hate most of Khalid’s reviews because he never does any of this. He is lenient only when it is a Shahrukh movie.
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@Khalid
One genuine questions. Whatever reviews I have read, you have been very strict to them. I mean you thrash almost 99% movies you review, and I agree at times you are to the point too. Still , I wonder,why producer/director invite you for a thursday premier !
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Hope springs eternal in the Human Breast-Alexander Pope.
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that was wickednessisationalism at its peak! way to go RS!
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Ha ha good one…u hit the bull’s eye
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red chillies vfx rocks! guess thats how srk made priyan pay for the disaster called billu.
cool review khalid saab.
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De Dana Dan… toh Le Dana Dan… wakai Le lee Khalid saab ne
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Reminds ‘moi’ of the Priyadarshan blockbuster interview of yours – in which he raved and raved about Kanchivaram. Wasn’t the pic, too, shot by you? You’ll be mighty pleased to be reminded of that piece. Lem’moi’ preemt your reaction… sniggers, hyuk hyuk, the works?
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What to do? Some love stories have flood on them.
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Thank God for your comment, there was atleast something worth reading on this page!!!
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Well I’ve seen the movie and here’s my take on it-
Yes indeed the first half is quite dull & in fact the climax is quite silly.But its the portion after interval that brings in the laughter.As Khalid has mentioned the lead cast has hardly anything to do.Its nice to see Johnny Lever in his element over here.
There’s a hell of a lot of characters and the hotel portion ( the best part ) is actually copied from Priyan’s own Malayalam movie- Vettam.And the music is hardly anything inspiring.All in all a movie that can be seen if there’s nothing better planned for the weekend.
But one thing I wish to point out is that this is not a very expensive movie as Khalid saab says.Most of the money is used mainly for the cast & crew.The filming is mostly indoors & should have been completed at a stretch.There’s also in film branding- Pan Pacific Hotel & First Flight Couriers which would have also brought in a lot of money.
Its better than Akshay’s duds like KI or Blue but its time Akshay does some serious re-thinking of the movies he is doing.
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I found your take much more balanced and precise. Good work!
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ho hum… a bore..
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Khalid Sir,
“Yet, you can’t help wondering about the number of small, sensible films that could have been made on the kind of budget that must have been squandered here”
Why can’t u say this for a crap like OM Shanti OM or KANK..Then u judge those movies with a different mindset no?..eventhough these movies are also as massy as DDD…I can already see ur prepared to give 5/5 for ‘My name is Khan’..
In fact Priyan movies are made within a reasonable budget since he has good experience working in budget conscious malayalam film industry for many years..I don’t think any of Priyan movies in Hindi lost money substantially..
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wonder how badly Paa is going to be trashed by khalidji.
I guess he will struggle to give it a single star.
No amitabh starrer will get more than 2 stars from KM
or maybe he can make amends for his earlier troubles with AB with a praising review
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I wonder why you wonder what Khalid is going to wonder about the AB’s act in Paa that everybody is wondering if its wonderful or wonder why
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wonderful reply :P
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Not one of the best comedy. Just a time pass.
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Not a bad movie to watch. Second half is good with lots of fun.
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