De Dana Dan
Directed by: Priyadarshan
Producer by: Ganesh Jain, Girish Jain, Ratan Jain
Starring: Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, Sunil Shetty, Paresh Rawal, Neha Dhupia, Sameera Reddy, Johny Lever, Manoj Joshi, Rajpal Yadav, Shakti Kapoor, Ratan Jain
Music Dir: Pritam Chakraborty, Rdb, Ad Boys

A director does to an actor as a tailor to a suit! Seeminly, Priyadarshan in the movie 'De Dana Dan' has put to sheer waste the talent of his key actor, Akshay Kumar. And, it feels that Priyadarshan just wanted to create a sort of a typical Bollywood multi-starrer cast with a galaxy of stars.

This comedy does not tickle the ribs, much less create any riot with an otherwise tested slate of comedians like Akshay Kumar, Paresh Rawal and Suniel Shetty. Akshay and Paresh have achieved comic success in 'Hera Pheri'. But, 'De Dana Dan' is no sequel. The director lets 'De Dana Dan' go haywire at a time when this genre is the most popular trend. Priyadarshan has lost out with a lackluster plot and an inappropriate cast.

Katrina Kaif as Bollywood's prettiest and romantic girl comes across as no comedy material! Maybe, this one was to please Akshay or to exploit the popularity of the Kat-Akki pair. But, 'De Dana Dan' fails miserably fails at utilizing either Akshay's skill or Kat's Barbie status.

Akki has made the audience laugh before. But, particularly in the second half of 'De Dana Dan', the movie, or more so its director, has ignored the lead actor to presumably justify the inclusion of a huge number of comics.

De Dana Dan' begins very well with the sorry tale of two friends - Akshay Kumar and Suniel Shetty. They can't marry their girl friends - Katrina Kaif and Sameera Reddy, respectively. The girls demand money and they guys have none.

Akshay undergoes serfdom to pay back his education loan to an evil character played by none other than a lady more known for laughter than any other thing, Archana Puran Singh. And, Suniel Shetty is merely a down and out delivery boy.

Finally, the friends hatch a kidnapping plot to earn the moolah for marriage. Well, like every Bollywood tale that can be foretold, the plot falls apart and boomerangs on them. It's all topsy turvy inasmuch as the girls' fathers appear on the scene making the matters complicated for boys.

Even a cinema school would teach it to be a director's folly to introduce a number of characters who have nothing to do excepting gunning each other. Incidentally, all of them including Tinu Anand, Paresh Rawal, Manoj Joshi, Vikram Gokhale, Neha Dhupia, Shakti Kapoor, Rajpal Yadav and Johnny Lever, are at each other's throat for nothing but to benefit Archana Puran Singh, who is otherwise the biggest evildoer!

This part is painfully monotonous with no fun and probably could turn to a headache. Akki and Paresh provide intermittent comic relief, but not enough to endure through the rest of the movie. One feels time and again that just these two tested players would have sufficed. And, they are the USP of the movie. Akshay's Sad Sack butler act and Paresh Rawal's rib tickling fun.

The rest of the cast of 'De Dana Dan' add to only numbers and not to fun. The movie moves around -Nitin Bankar played by Akshay Kumar, a driver under deep debt and Ram Mishra played by Suniel Shetty, a courier boy. The boys turn to a sort of hera pher and kidnap a canine.

No sooner does the cast increase than they enter into a five star hotel, where they chase each other as if in a frenzy. Here is where we lose track of the movie and the characters, their connections and the celluloid looks like that a quick movie hastily written and filmed.

Among actors, Akshay performs very well followed by Paresh Rawal. They carry the movie on their shoulders and the audience misses Akki in the latter half of the movie. Johnny Lever steals the show. Rajpal Yadav and Asrani are hilarious too.

Johnny Lever and Suneil Shetty go well with the audience. Manoj Joshi doesn't click though. Katrina Kaif and Sameera Reddy don't charm either; their dresses lack a lot. Archana Puran Singh is as usual in her jolly mood. Aditi Govitrikar hardly does anything. Neha Dhupia is okay. Chunky Pandey is hardly seen. Vikram Gokhale tries hard for his first time.

Pritam's music is now outdated and doesn't impress the audience. A song that touches the heart is 'Paisa', the Katrina-Akshay duet belted by a Punjabi pop band! Salim-Sulaiman's background score is loud and many a time overshadows dialogues. Well, dialogue delivery is unsatisfactory.

Katrnia may not have dubbed this time!! Ganesh Acharya's choreography does not leave an impact. Most of the movie is located inside a hotel, so the camerawork isn't much demanding - K Ahambaram fares okay as the cinematographer.

Maybe with it being the only release this Friday November 27, 2009, the movie might stand a chance and may not topple completely. It does have the Akki-Kat appeal. Producer Ratan Jain has bet a huge sum of Rs. 400 million. But, what a waste!