'Yamla Pagla Deewana: Phir Se' Review - Dharmendra, Sunny and Bobby Deol's dramedy is loud and lustreless

Film: Yamla Pagla Deewana: Phir Se

Cast: Dharmendra, Sunny Deol, Bobby Deol, Kriti Kharbanda

Direction: Navaniat Singh

Duration: 2 hours, 34 minutes

Language: Hindi (U/A)

Genre: Comedy

Critic’s Rating: 2/5

Story:

Puran Singh (Sunny) is an Ayurveda practitioner whose 'Vajra Kavach' formula is an effective remedy for everything from infertility to impotency, from a regular cold to severe colitis. Every big pharma company wants to match the potency of Puran’s medicines. When a pharma giant fails to strike a legitimate deal with him, he tries to bribe Puran’s good-for-nothing brother, Kaala (Bobby) into showing him a way forward. Parmar (Dharmendra), their tenant and an intelligent lawyer, is also a part of this comedy where there are so much noise and brute strength, you fervently wish you were comatose in that cinema chair.

Review:

Rewind to Yamla Pagla Deewana (2011). It had nothing in it, but the magic of the three Deols collectively was enough to charm an audience. Seven years and two YPD versions later, part 3 is cringeworthy. The script is outdated and the performances, with the exception of Sunny, are loud and lusterless.

Who is this Navaniat Singh? How dare he try to revive the classic Manmohan Desai formula with neither the conviction nor the cleverness of the original King of kitsch? Why on earth would a sensible man like Sunny (who is a decent filmmaker himself) agree to this OTT outing, the formula of which was buried in the ’80s?

Brain-dead cinema is a way of life in Bollywood. However, airing one just because you are to the manor born and have a faithful fan following in Punjab and Canedda (Canada) is good enough reason to put this out. It’s sad to subject an audience to this tripe because the Deols were suddenly in the mood for a family outing.

The music is nothing to dance to. The dialogue is still peppered with paanch kilo and dedh kilo ka haath. Gaps in the screenplay are filled with Sunny’s muscle power and yesteryear actors like Shatrughan Sinha and Rekha show up to express their solidarity with the emotional Deol family that still has goodwill. However, if the family insists on corroding it with meaningless movies like this one, even the faithful will eventually turn away.

Verdict: If you love Sunny, buy a ticket. His sincerity is never a doubt. Other than that, YPD should NEVER be attempted phir se.