In Pics: Daddy Cool cast at 10 Ka Dum

Daddy Cool - Movie Review

Not all English films can be adapted for the Indian screen. Also, the remake may not necessarily be as interesting as the original. That's what you realize when you watch the Hindi version of DEATH AT A FUNERAL called DADDY COOL. Sadly, DADDY COOL is just not cool. Plenty of reasons why...

* One, this supposedly laugh riot fails to tickle your funny bone, barring in a scene or two.

* Two, the concept is more suited for a play. Setting an entire film on one location, with the story taking place in a span of a few hours, is not too exciting.

Even otherwise DADDY COOL tries so hard to make you laugh, but falls flat on its face. The unfortunate part is, comedy in Hindi movies is now relegated to making faces on camera and that's what most actors in DADDY COOL do.

Another factor that goes against the film is its humour. It's crass and crude. In this film, men roam around either in shirts, showing off their underpants [Chunky Pandey] or stand on a roof with just underclothes [Aftab Shivdasani] or tell people to remove their underclothes so that they can relieve themselves in a toilet [Prem Chopra asks Jaaved Jaffery to do so].

Really, what kind of humour is this?

Chaos erupts during the funeral of Douglas [Sharat Saxena] when the grieved mourners are struck by drugs, romance, jealousy and a scandalous secret, all of which befall the family and friends.

Director K Murali Mohan Rao has helmed several interesting films in the past, but what's this? Sure, DADDY COOL has a few entertaining moments, like the one when Rajpal Yadav reveals the secret [that Sharat Saxena was gay and Rajpal and he were lovers], but the remaining sub-plots fail to cut ice. Adding multiple sub-plots is fine as long as each sub-plot has something fascinating to say, but that's missing here. Even the end is so bizarre, with members of this detached family suddenly professing love for one another.

There's just one song [Raghav Sachar] at the start [a tuneful number] and one towards the end. Dialogues are strictly okay.

With a weak screenplay on hand, there's not much the actors can do. The ones who try hard and manage are Suniel Shetty, Jaaved Jaffery, Sophie Choudry, Chunky Pandey and Prem Chopra.

On the whole, DADDY COOL fails to deliver what it promises - laughter and entertainment.

First Look: Daddy Cool

It’s the funeral of Daddy Cool Douglas Lazarus, but apart from tears, sad speeches and melancholia, there’s a wrong dead body, drug induced relatives, knife wielding wife, doddering old uncles and an underworld don.

K Murli Mohan Rao, who is the director last made Kahin Pyar Na Ho Jaaye with Salman Khan, which tanked and with this new film he hopes to revive both his career as a filmmaker and pump back comedy into the theatres at a time when most other films are not being able to set the cash registers ringing.

Aftab Shivdasani is joined in by Suniel Shetty, Ashish Chaudhary, Chunkey Pandey and Javed Jaffrey in this laugh riot. With characters making up an entire mental asylum, the story resolves around Good Son Steven Lazarus (Suniel Shetty), an aspiring writer trying to give his father a decent funeral by delivering a eulogy that includes a description of the rivers of Goa.

Prospective groom Michael (Aftab Shivdasani) to a cousin, Maria (Tulip Joshi) is nervous about meeting father-in-law and under the influence of a drug, he loses his mind. It turns out that Maria's junkie brother Harry (Chunky Pandey) has fed him a bottle of Relaxo.

Enter Blackmailer- Andrew (Rajpal Yadav) who has a scandalous secret about the deceased Douglas Daddy Cool Lazarus (Sharat Saxena). If this wasn’t enough, another melee of relatives are there to make a complete melange of madness and chaos even to leave the deceased with a wide smile on his face.

When StarBoxOffice contacted Aftab about the film, he said, "Daddy Cool will have you rolling off your seats with laughter. I have done many comedies in the past but Daddy Cool had me in splits every second minute. I had a blast shooting the film and I hope the audience enjoys it as much as we did."

Sounds familiar eh? The film is a copy of Death at a Funeral! You heard it here first.

In Pics: Stars at 'Terminator Salvation' Premiere

Paying Guest - Movie Review

Paying Guests isn’t exactly what the doctor ordered at this time immediately after the producer-multiplex conflict got over, but it serves as a good prelude to the big budget movies following it in the coming weeks, as it will only increase the hunger of the audience to watch a good movie.

Mind you, it’s not bad but it’s not good either. It has its funny moments where you jump from your seat laughing but it lacks the style and in some parts the treatment is pathetic. It tries to live up to the style and sleekness of Dostana but fails miserably.

The story revolves around four guys (Shreyas Talpade, Javed Jaffery, Aashish Choudhary, Vatsal Seth), three of whom have been fired from their jobs and have also been asked to vacate the house where they stay as pg’s by the owner Asrani. In their effort to find a place to stay in, they stumble upon a house which is owned by Johnny Lever and Dilnaz Paul, but the catch is that the people staying in the house have to be married. So taking a cue from Ritesh Deshmukh’s performance is Money Hai Toh Honey Hai which is playing besides on the flat screen TV, they get the idea to dress Javed and Shreyas as women and their wives, to get to stay in the flat.

Then follows the story that any slapstick movie would have. Different characters locking horns with each other in every scene and a khichdi of funny experiences is formed.

The chemistry between the guys is something to watch out for. It seems like the scenes between them have been shot without any retakes. There is a scene when all of them are drunk and cursing Asrani and he is standing right behind them, which is one of the funniest scenes in the movie. Shreyas and Javed are natural actors and occupy more screen time than the other two.

The girls don’t have any scope to act as the script is entirely focused on the guys and are merely there for skin show. This again goes to show how male centered most of our movies are. Riya Sen, Celina Jaitly, Sayali Bhagat and Neha Dhupia would have been better off as mannequins than actors in this movie. Riya and Sayali’s dialogue delivery is shoddy and most of the time the girl’s performances are clearly overshadowed by the guys. Ritesh and Javeed playing women seem better off than any of the girls.

The other characters in the movie give a decent performance too. Chunky Pandey plays a stuttering goon, Johnny Lever as his sardar brother and Dilnaz as Jhonny's gujarati wife. Dilnaz’s dialogues have been nicely written and superbly delivered.

The last scene tries to ape the ‘Mahabaharat’ scene in Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, but that kind of genius cannot be repeated, even though this one is fairly funny.

Surprisingly with so many characters in the movie, at no point do you ever feel confused about what’s going on.