Story: A strapping sardaar travels home (Punjab) from UK, to claim ancestral property; only to be welcomed by another family of sardaars who’re age-old clan-dushmans. And the only escape is living-in with the enemy.
Review: Move over
Chicken Khurana, the real butter
kukkad is here. And he’s here with a bang this Diwali – singing, dancing, flipping in the air – all in the mustard fields of Phagwara (that’s in Punjab, FYI), classic Bollywood
ishtyle. Except that this is a
Singham getting
Dabangg and Rowdier than any
Rathore – on Punjabi steroids – and in total
sardaar avatar. Hadippa!
So bring out that tall glass of chilled
lassi and let’s figure the why, what, who of this
desi-ghee story. Jassi (Ajay Devgn)
jaisa koi nahi. He falls in love-at-first-sight, in a train with Sukhmeet (Sonakshi), call her Sukh please (she’s quite a ‘peace’ of work); and ends up as a guest in her mad-house full of comical
sardaars – The Sandhus. There’s the head-of-the-house Billu
paaji (Sanjay Dutt), bros Tony (Mukul Dev) and Tito (Vindoo Dara Singh), who’ve sworn to never have ice-cream and cold-drinks (rum-on-the-rocks is all he’s ever had, poor liver, sigh!) until they avenge their father’s death; and a kid
sardaar who talks about ‘pegs’ (Patiala types).
movie
Adding solid
femme power to this macho
sardaar story is Pammi (Juhi Chawla, delightful) Billu’s
mooh-boli-biwi, Bebe (Tanuja) suffering from part-time memory lapses; and lastly Rajpreet the loved buffalo (who
mooed this cheez?) The problem? The Sandhus have been vengefully thirsting for Jassi’s head, but can’t lay a sword on him because he’s their (unwanted) house-guest (
mehmaan equals
bhagwan, remember?), he even feigns
‘paira-te-laces’ (paralyses) to stay ‘home’ to save his life.
Ajay Devgn convincingly plays son-of-the-soil with power, playfulness and colorful
pagdis in every scene. He switches from comedy, action and romance flippantly, impressing with funny lines, gimmicks atop a
ghodi (Jassi again) and tons of PJJs (poor-
Punju-jokes). Sonakshi throws in another ‘heavy-weight’ performance. In Ajay’s own words,
“kaafi bhaari hai” (read: weight). She does her usual dance routine (with
ceetees et al), spouts
‘chal jhoota’ to all men, and plays the
moophat girl in true
sardarni style.
Sanjay Dutt, as the supporting
sardaar, is a delight to watch. His
gussa makes you giggle and his angry outbursts are adorable. Juhi Chawla lights up the screen with her comic timing as impeccable as ever. The coy-cum-cutesy scenes between Dutt and Chawla are amongst the highlights of this one.
The other members of this madhouse, Vindoo Dara Singh and Mukul Dev also pack a knockout Punjabi-punch with their dumb’n’dumber act.
Ashwini Dhir entertains in parts, with a plenty of
Punju humour and goofy one-liners that crack you up. While handling all the Jaswinders, Parminders, Happys and Sweetys, he loses the plot, stretching it all around the
sarson-ka-khet (and leaving some behind). This is a mass-entertainer, strung together with a series of Santa-Banta jokes, spiked solidly with macho
sardaarisms.
Like Jassi says,
“Kabhi toh hasliya karo”, this one makes you laugh – in parts!