YAMLA PAGLA DEEWANA 2 REVIEW

YAMLA PAGLA DEEWANA 2

Sunny Sounds Pvt. Ltd’s Yamla Pagla Deewana 2 (UA) is the second film in the Yamla Pagla Deewana franchise. Dharam (Dharmendra) has two sons, Paramvir (Sunny Deol) and Gajodhar (Bobby Deol). While the elder son, Paramvir, is fruitfully employed in London, Dharam and Gajodhar are con men in Varanasi in India. They meet Sir Yograj Khanna (Annu Kapoor) from the UK and, mistaking him to be a wealthy businessman, try to get close to him. In fact, Dharam asks Gajodhar to woo Khanna’s daughter, Suman (Neha Sharma), so that he can marry her and become the heir to Khanna’s wealth. Gajodhar changes his name to Prem and romances Suman.

Dharam and Gajodhar even land in London with the same ulterior motive, where they meet Paramvir who realises that he had erred in believing that his father and brother had given up their con lives. Soon, Dharam and Gajodhar are in for a rude shock when Khanna tells them that Suman is his adopted daughter. His biological daughter, Reet (Kristina Akheeva), organises painting exhibitions and she is attracted to Paramvir. Since Dharam wants to usurp Khanna’s property, he asks his partner-in-crime, Gajodhar, to now woo Reet. For this, he cooks up a story about Prem having a twin brother, Q (Bobby Deol), who surfaces to romance Reet. Q introduces himself as a painter so that he can come close to Reet instantly.

Q is about to be exposed in front of Reet when he can’t paint but Einstein (Aidan Cook as monkey) comes to his rescue. Meanwhile, Paramvir helps Khanna re-establish his club at the opening of which he (Khanna) invites Q as he takes him to be a celebrated painter after people become teary-eyed on seeing his painting (which is actually done by Einstein). Paramvir gets drunk at the club opening and is about to expose his brother and father.

Does Paramvir expose his family? Does Reet remain loyal to Paramvir or does she fall prey to Dharam and Q’s plans? Do Dharam and Q/Prem/Gajodhar do anything to remove Paramvir from the way? Who is Joginder Armstrong (Anupam Kher) and why does he send men to fight Khanna and Gajodhar?

The film is designed as a comedy but the tragedy is that it hardly has any comic scenes which can make the audience laugh. The story, written by Lynda Deol, is weak and too scattered to make any impact. It also moves on so many tracks, several of them rather ridiculous, that the impact gets further diluted. The screenplay, penned jointly by Jasvinder Singh Bath and Lynda Deol, is tame and very childish. For one, scenes come one after another without much concern for continuity. Secondly, the comedy in the scenes just doesn’t come across. Thirdly, Prem/Q’s attempt to woo Suman first and Reet later is so blatant that even a dumb ass would understand that something is fishy but yet, Khanna seems to be clueless about the plotting and planning. Why, Khanna doesn’t even doubt it when a twin brother of Prem is introduced out of the blue. Even Paramvir’s reactions to the actions of his father and younger brother are so silly that the viewers are left wondering about who is the hero of the drama. Paramvir’s drunken scene is embarrassing as are so many scenes of Dharam and Gajodhar. The scene in which Prem rattles off a dialogue containing names of films starring Bobby Deol is outright childish. The angle of Joginder Armstrong is so half-baked that it comes as a shock to the audience when it is given so much importance in the climax. In fact, the entire track seems to have been added to lead the comedy film to an action-filled climax. Although so much is made of Q’s painting (actually done by Einstein) that whoever sees it becomes emotional, the audience is simply not shown the painting. Nothing could be more ridiculous than this!

In other words, the two writers have made a complete mess of the screenplay. Romance is as good as absent, comedy is terribly weak, family emotions are almost non-existent, and even the action scenes lack thrill, except for a couple of them. Dialogues (Jasvinder Singh Bath) are dull.

Dharmendra does a very average job. Sunny Deol is not at all in his element and actually looks embarrassed doing some scenes. Bobby Deol fails to make a mark and seems to have been in a hurry to finish his work. Neha Sharma is alright. Debutante Kristina Akheeva looks pretty and acts well. Annu Kapoor is unable to make the audience laugh. Even Johny Lever’s (as Bunty) comedy more often than not falls flat on its face. Sucheta Khanna is nice as Babli. Aidan Cook will be liked by the kids for his antics as a monkey. Anupam Kher overacts to the hilt. Mukul Dev (as Gyani), Gurbachan Singh (as Akhtar Mian), Aditya Raj Kapoor (as Mr. Oberoi), Amit Bathija (as Harry Johal), Alessia Burchkard (as the hooker) and the others provide absolutely ordinary support.

Sangeeth Sivan’s direction is outright silly. He and the script writers have done a lot to make the drama so ridiculous that the audience would disconnect quite early on. Music (Sharib-Toshi) is quite good. Kumaar’s lyrics are in keeping with the film’s flavor but it seems weird that Gajodhar, who stays in Varanasi, should sing a song with Marathi words like ‘chaangli’ in it. Choreography (Bosco Caesar) is okay. Raju Singh’s background score is ordinary. Neha Parti Maityani’s cinematography is of a good standard. Peter Hein’s action and stunt scenes would appeal to the masses, mainly the front-benchers. Sets (Muneesh Sappel) are alright. Editing (Chirag Jain) is so-so. Production values are very nice.

On the whole, Yamla Pagla Deewana 2 is a dull comedy show and will, therefore, meet with a tragic outcome at the ticket windows. The producers have made a neat profit after selling off the worldwide theatrical rights (to Stellar Films), satellite rights (at a hefty price) and other rights and also thanks to the subsidy they will recieve from the UK government, but the worldwide distributors will not be lucky enough to cover their costs.