Review Overview
Director: Navaniat Singh
Duration: 145 minutes
Language: Hindi
When an Ayurvedic practitioner comes up with a miracle medicine, handed down to him from generations, a pharma company owner hatches a plan to get the patent for himself and make money. When the vaid is dragged to court, situations begin to turn around and a lot of comedy of errors is committed, eventually reaching a very surprising end.
When the Deols come together, they either give us a laugh riot (read ‘Yamla Pagla Deewana’), which have us in splits or they come up with a family entertainer (read ‘Apne’) that totally touch our hearts. But when they come up with sequels of their own blockbusters, the audiences can do nothing but fume! ‘Yamla Pagla Deewana’ (YPD) was a genuinely funny movie with spot-on, clean comedy that families watched and enjoyed together, whereas its sequel ‘YPD 2’ was its exact opposite. With a primate thrown in the plot for comedy, it failed to evoke a positive response at the box office. Although not completely boring, ‘Yamla Pagla Deewana: Phir Se’ – the third in the installment – fails to keep you engaged.
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Vaid Pooran Singh (Sunny Deol) practices Ayurvedic medicine in Amritsar. He has come up with a cure-all formula called vajra kavach, which has been passed onto him from his ancestors. A big pharma company, owned by Marfatia (Mohan Kapoor) wants to lay its hands on the miracle medicine and would do anything to get it. Pooran has two problems. His brother Kaala (Bobby Deol) is a good-for-nothing, 40-year-old virgin, who is desperately looking for love, but their humble background hinders his advances. Kaala wants to sell their age-old secret formula to companies to make quick bucks. Pooran also has a day-dreaming, forever-drunk tenant Parmar (Dharmendra), who happens to be a lawyer that fantasizes about fairies and pixies.
When Marfatia goes the crooked way to get the secret formula, the Singhs are dragged to court and then directly to Gujarat to fight the patent case. Here Kaala runs into ENT specialist Chikoo (Kriti Kharbanda) again, who had previously been to Amritsar to study ancient medicine. Both fall in love and sing a song or two over mugs of alcohol. The Punjabis are forced to pretend to be Gujjus and all hell starts to break loose over an ancient drug.
What follows thereafter is anybody’s guess. A lot of characters come and go and add in their bit of entertainment and that is just about it. Bollywood debutant director Navaniat Singh, who has Punjabi movies to his credit previously, even ropes in Salman Khan, Sonakshi Sinha and the evergreen Rekha to get some brownie points, but the franchise, which has been done to death, only keeps sinking further. Not in continuation with the first two parts, ‘YPD: Phir Se’ is not as hilarious as the first part. Comedy is intermittent and it does not evoke a hearty laugh either, which sadly was its hallmark. Some courtroom scenes are good but then those are in the second half of the movie. The plot is stretched beyond limit; and the climax can be easily guessed even before interval arrives.
Navaniat Singh does not succeed in delivering and also fails at bringing the best from his actors. Sunny Deol’s dhai kilo ka haath now gets over the nerves and his loud dialogue delivery every time an action sequence comes on is a bit off-putting. Bobby Deol’s overacting, despite the limelight being on him this time, does not go down well the audiences either. Kriti Kharbanda’s mock-Gujju accent is annoying and she is not up to the mark. Veteran actor Dharmendra now needs to retire gracefully.
There’s not much to write home about the franchise, except that ‘Yamla Pagla Deewana’ now needs to stop coming up with installments that offer nothing but rehashed jokes and gags that are tried and tested in every other movie, every other Friday.
Simply put, ‘Yamla Pagla Deewana: Phir Se’ is boring. No harm in giving this one a miss.
Eventznu Rating: * ½
