Genre: Comedy
Director: Anees Bazmee
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, Neha Dhupia, Sonu Sood, Om Puri
Storyline: Happy Singh goes to Australia to bring back Lucky Singh, a powerful don who gives his community a bad name.
Bottomline: This King needs happy-go-lucky subjects
The film, quite seriously, begins with a disclaimer: “This is not a religious film.”
Intended or otherwise, that’s cheeky.
Even more cheeky is the next disclaimer that informs us that “cruelty was not inflicted on the hen during the making of the film” and the stunt sequence involving the hen was completely computer generated.
So you begin watching the film with a smile pasted on your face hoping it would have plenty of politically incorrectness and irreverence.
Yes, the chase sequence involving the hen soon happens and you realise it isn’t as funny as the makers would like us to believe.
Singh is Kinng is nothing more than a Punjabi-take on Munnabhai MBBS – it’s about a simpleton with a heart of gold making his gangster sidekicks pretend that they are harmless all for a good cause and falling in love with a girl who he thinks is too good for him.
By formula, it is guaranteed to bring in the laughs. Which is why the final product is disappointing. Don’t get me wrong, there are a few laughs and the humour sparkles in bits that seem improvised (there’s a politically incorrect hilarious segment involving a paralysed King being passed around like a tray on a wheelchair) and Akshay Kumar is fantastic carrying the film on his shoulders with the uncouth bumpkin image that’s become his second skin off late.
The fact that Sardars are lovable folk with a great sense of humour adds plenty to the feel-good factor and their unpredictable mood swings are enough to provide the drama needed for a movie and when you add to that their brand of singing and dancing and a slang-uage that’s extremely colourful and expletive-ridden, it seems like a perfect recipe for a new genre of filmmaking, a race-celebratory genre that Afro-American actors like Will-Smith and Martin Lawrence popularised in the US and rappers like Ice Cube, LL Cool J, Snoop Dogg, DMX or Mos Def.
It seems like a conscious attempt to do that given that the makers have got Dogg himself to represent the Punjabi and have come up with probably one of the best albums this year (Full points to Pritam and Co).
But despite the formula-narrative and the right ingredients, the film works better as a musical than a comedy simply because even the silliest of comedies need a plot than just a mere excuse for launching its jokes.
Singh is Kinng is rich in flavour with its rocking song-and-dance choreography and celebration of all things Punjabi. It has a super ensemble cast with a talented bunch including Om Puri, Javed Jaffery, Sonu Sood, Yashpal Sharma and Manoj Pahwa playing likeable Sardars, taking us from one plot twist to another, like they are all playing Whose Line Is It Anyway. The women have never looked hotter – Katrina makes you hungry and Dhupia makes you sweat.
Full points to that sort of form and content but there’s no plausible story to power the narrative that meanders into nothingness.
Now you are entertained, now you are bored. Especially when people get all emotional and sentimental on screen. Now, that’s the cue for your loo/cigarette breaks. Come back for the songs.
And, you won’t miss a Singh.
MADRAS INK. 