Yamla Pagla Deewana

Rating : 4/10
Release Date : 14th January, 2011
Time : 163 minutes
Director : Samir Karnik; Writer : Jasvinder Singh Bath; Music : Various
Starring : Sunny Deol, Bobby Deol, Dharmendra, Kulraj Randhawa, Nafisa Ali
One recent trend in Hindi films is that the best jokes are revealed in the promo’s leaving very second rate ones for the actual film. This is the case with YPD as well. Lots of ordinary jokes, Punjabi sterotypes (everyone drinks Patiala pegs, is dumb and over the top), unnecessary sentimentality, cringe-worthy songs (apart from the title track) and a wayward storyline that goes on for far too long. Sunny does what he does best, puts his dhai kilo ka haath to good use and constantly beats up people. Kulraj looks pretty. Anupam Kher makes for an interesting sardar. And Bobby overacts badly.



This is a story of brothers being separated, one (Sunny) going with mom (Nafisa) to Canada, settling down there with gori mem (Emma Brown) and two kids who abuse each other in Punjabi. The other (Bobby), staying with Dad (Dharam) in Benares and the duo conning people for a living and living the high life (wine, women etc). When Nafisa finds out that her estranged hubby is still a con-man, she sends Sunny to find them and bring them. Dharam refuses to accept / recognise him so he makes himself indispensable to them by becoming their muscle-man, beating up people to ensure their tricks continue unabated.

Then Bobby falls in love with Kulraj, who’s from Punjab, who’s brothers (eldest being Anupam Kher) are trigger and fist happy and want to get her married only to an NRI. So Sunny now has to make sure this happens. Can he ?



This is one of those films where you know the composition of the final frame very soon after the first few. So it totally relies on making the journey interesting but unfortunately that happens only in fits and starts. The whole separated brothers, emotional mothers stories died out for a reason. The romance between Kulraj (looks nice) and Bobby was half-baked – all he did was look goofy, talk funny, bring her baingans and she fell for him.


The best moments come in the second half when the Deol clan move to Punjab and their home turf of sarson ke khet, small village etc. Kulraj’s cousin (Sucheta Khanna), has some of the funniest moments as she falls for Bobby (wearing a t-shirt which says ‘Welcome to Caneda’, calling him a very ‘impotent’ person etc). Mukul Dev and Puneet Issar have decent cameos. And there is a typical madcap ending which comes at least 20-25 minutes after it should have is how the film concludes.

One of the biggest attractions of the film for me was watching Dharamendra again. Well there are parts of you that do want to see him on screen again and parts of you which wish that he retires peacefully or at least doesn’t do the kinds of things he was made to in this movie (dressing up weirdly, kissing item girls etc). Unfortunately, the latter were more than the former…