DE DANA DAN [2009]

DE DANA DAN promises laughter and entertainment and sticks to its promise. Nitin is a butler, cook, driver, watchman, gardener to a wealthy female industrialist in Singapore. Like any young man, Nitin too dreams of a better life. He desperately wants to become rich and marry the love of his life, Anjali, who supports him financially. Ram, Nitin's best friend, also came to Singapore with the dream of striking it rich, but ended up a courier delivery man. He falls for Manpreet, but her high society parents will never approve of marriage, not unless Ram has lots and lots of money. In the midst of all this is Harbans, a shrewd businessman, who's looking for ways to multiply his income and avoid his debtors. He decides the best way would be to marry his son off to a girl whose parents can give him a large dowry.

He is introduced to Manpreet's parents at a function and is impressed by their social status. He introduces himself as a well-established businessman, impresses them and they decide to get Manpreet and Harbans' son married. With several factors working against them, Nitin and Ram soon reach a dead end in their relationships. When both receive ultimatums from their girlfriends, they realize that only a life of vice can help them out of their misery. They come up with an audacious plan to kidnap someone important and demand a ransom. The kidnapping goes awry and both hide at a local hotel while waiting for the ransom money. But misfortune is never far and the kidnapping spirals out of control.

Meanwhile, Manpreet's wedding reception is being held at the same hotel that Nitin and Ram are hiding in. Soon, they are joined by a motley set of characters including a Chinese Don [Asrani], a hired assassin [Johny Lever], a ACB police inspector [Sharat Saxena], a club dancer [Neha Dhupia], an ambassador [Vikram Gokhale], a young frustrated double crossing wife [Aditi Govitrikar], a letch [Shakti Kapoor], a drunken waiter [Rajpal Yadav] and a dead body nobody wants to check into the hotel.

Going by its casting, do not expect "De Dana Dan" to be a sequel, tribute or extension of the "Hera Pheri" series. Forget the threesome chemistry, there is hardly a single frame in the film where the trio of Akshay Kumar, Sunil Shetty and Paresh Rawal share screen space. On the positive side, the movie is fun to watch, and does not deviate from the formula. Each actor, each character, and there are at least 20 characters in the movie, play their part well. Of all actors, Johny Lever, and Asrani are probably the best in their parts. Paresh Rawal has done well too. Akshay is now a regular at this theme, dont expect anything new from him, but he does excellently well in his role.

Pritam is consistently delivering hit after hit, though his last release All The Best was not up to the mark. Nevertheless, the Bong musician continues to create stirring tunes for music buffs. Here is ‘De Dana Dan’, the album features six originals and six remixes. Rishte Naate in the voice of Rahat Fatah Ali Khan is a must-hear number and this is because of the innocence that runs through the song that is not high on bass and is lucid. Pritam and Rahat know how to mesmerize the listeners. But the mandatory remix version crooned by Kunal Ganjawala fails to lure us like the original. RDB ft Pritam’s Paisa Paisa sounds so much like an Akshay Kumar song. In fact, the little inspiration from Usher’s song ‘Yeah’ makes it no different.

"De Dana Dan" is targeted at the masses and it delivers laughter in abundance. Leave your brains behind to enjoy this Priyadarshan Entertainer!