Okay, David Dhawan's comedies are meant to be insane. His brand of senselessness, carried out with the loopy, casual abandon of Govinda, has made for some amusing entertainment. However, Ek Aur Ek Gyarah, Dhawan's new joint venture with Govinda, and with Subhash Ghai as the producer, certainly doesn't have that effortless sense of fun. It only adds up to sheer drivel and boredom.
The Govinda-Sanjay Dutt jodi returns to play Taraji and Sitaraji, two Punjabi-speaking crooks (a reprisal of Satish Kaushik-Pankaj Kapur's Neetu-Nonie act on the small screen) who unknowingly mess around with bigger crooks, Cobra (Vidyarthi) and Panther (Grover) who play the quintessential desh aur insaniyat ke dushman. Our loveable rogues are eventually reformed and rehabilitated after they wipe out the bigger evil with some help from the dour Major Ram Singh (Shroff). The plot expects you to leave your rationality behind and the characters are quite obviously out of a child's comic-book. Which would have been okay if some zany energy had helped things come alive. But Dhawan fails to pull off an inspired act, not even from Govinda whose streetsmart manner gets weighed down by the film's uniformly loud, grating tone. He does try to improvise once in a while, particularly while rounding off his Punjabi accented dialogues with corny English statements or while singing popular Hindi songs in various comic situations. But the film is so shrill that all you hear is a screech. Which reflects on the music as well. Ghai's films have usually boasted of some hummable numbers. But Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy disappoint hugely after the delightful score in Dil Chahta Hai. What's worse than the hammy actors are the two infantile actresses. And an even bigger eyesore: the clothes they adorn. Amrita and Nandini have truly worked hard at looking hideous.
The only thing I'd remember in the film is Govinda's singing. In particular the Radha-Krishna bhajan shows he has inherited his mother's classical voice. But as he says in the film: "Change gaane gaye par changa chorus nahin mila (I tried singing nice songs but didn't get a nice chorus). Hopefully, next time Mr Dhawan will give him a better tune.
US top 5
1. Bringing Down the House
2. Dreamcatcher
3. Agent Cody Banks
4. View from the Top
5. The Hunted
INDIAN top 5
1. Chura Liya Hai Tumne
2. Khushi
3. Saathiya
4. Om
5. Kuch To Hai
