In his interview with Bollywood Hungama, Diljit Dosanjh naively admitted that he neither remembered the exact details of his role nor he had seen ARJUN PATIALA as presented before the audience. The confession frankly reminded me of Govinda in the 80s and before him Shashi Kapoor who was even given the tag of ‘Taxi’ by his elder brother Raj Kapoor for running from one studio to another twice or thrice in a day for different film shoots.
When an actor is enjoying his fast paced flight of success then he does make mistakes of signing films that have nothing in them as content and have just been conceived to take advantage of its Star value and the fan following. The reason for doing such films can be money, insecurity or may be obliging a close one. But in another case, its also possible that an actor in demand signs a film simply believing in the known director, that doesn’t turn out to be any worthy product as he assumed it to be or shockingly results in a very poor film.
ARJUN PATIALA, unfortunately seems to be the second case here as it has been directed by Rohit Jugraj, who started with Hindi films but later directed a few Punjabi hits featuring the top most stars of Punjabi Cinema. The director had a successful 2 film series of SARDAR JI with Diljit Dosanjh in Punjabi and probably that was the reason they together decided to go for a Hindi film encashing the current demand of Diljit in Hindi cinema.
The intentions might have been positive but sadly the end product is quite pathetic and as confusing as the title ARJUN PATIALA which neither has someting new to tell, nor has some praiseworthy writing, execution or music that keeps you glued to the screen in its less than two hours of duration. In fact when even such short duration film tends to be too long then it clearly gives you the verdict about its worth and the actual entertainment value.
In short, the only positives in the film are that it’s a spoof on Hindi filmmaking itself, which is a rare genre and has sincere performances by Diljit Dosanjh, Kriti Sanon and Varun Sharma who keep trying to entertain enacting a badly written script. Plus the innovative use of interesting graphics throughout the film, do grab your attention at intervals. But at the same time it’s a pity to see actors such as Ronit Roy, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub and Seema Pahwa playing awfully written characters remaining wasted.
Giving you the actual picture, director Rohit and singer turned actor Diljit actually try to repeat the same treatment and humour they have been presenting in their Punjabi series SARDAR JI but it falls flat and doesn’t work in ARJUN PATIALA in Hindi. The basic reason behind the failure remains the lesser discussed or accepted truth that the comic dialogues and punches that easily work in Punjabi language do not generate any similar, powerful impact in Hindi comedies. The same reason I mentioned in the review of another recent Hindi comedy JHOOTHA KAHIN JA, directed by Smeep Kang – one of the most successful directors of Punjabi film industry.
The issue hampers the overall impact here too and perhaps a heavy hangover of making Punjabi comedies proves to be disadvantage while writing and directing Hindi comedy films.
In all, forget about Patiala pegs, this is not even a sip of any tasteful, enjoyable drink to be straight. However a film like ARJUN PATIALA can still be tried online (after a few weeks) but that too if you are a die-hard Diljit fan ready to ignore everything else in an unnecessary, avoidable film.
Rating : 1 / 5