The Joker is King. Review on Singh is Kinng

There are solutions for every problem, I always knew that. There are also more innovative ways to attempt things, that also is no secret.

Haven’t we seen the Munnaibhais of filmdom sometime back tackling issues in a different way. So whats the big deal if someone again attempts to do the same. Nothing except that there needs to at least a small element of believability in the whole madness. The story must move in some direction and reach somewhere. Well let’s look at what we have here closely.

A sloppy Punjabi guy, a Sardar to be precise cant catch a hen, and creates a lot of ruckus doing so, that much is believable. One might even find the some humour in the whole fall and rise thing. But what after that. What is not believable by any stretch of imagination is that a whole village will try to get rid of him just because he is a little sloppy. And that too by sending him on a mission which needed no doing in the first place. After all neither did the father of Lucky Singh get a heart attack nor did the family have a burning desire to meet their long “immigrated to Australia” son, who had in any case now become a local Don. And to top it all money is collected by the whole village for the purpose!

But even if one thinks that this was the result of a moment of collective madness that struc the whole Punjab village, what cannot be explained by the same logic is what follows thereafter. OK lets assume two stupid villagers cannot read what boarding cards they carry( even though in my experience first timers going abroad check their documents a hundred times if not more), but what prompted well read people to board a flight to a diff country than that of their destination beats my intellegence. Well many people would argue that its only a movie after all and made for the entertainment of the general public and not to cater to the class intellegentia. But I argue that then in that case there has to be some element of humour at least. Frankly the only humour that I could see upto now was in the despicable  use of some Punjabi bad words by Om Puri.  I am even ready to accept that I am dumb or have a skewered sence of humour. The the fact remains that I couldent even hear anyone else in the hall laughing(to be perfectly honest, the only time that I had ear plugs in were during the songs, so you have to grant it to me that I could hear correctly).

Ok so for once our own Happy Singh does the logical thing and goes out to see Egypt, having already obtained the Visa for that country and with some clear hours to go for the next flight. But by what stretch of imagination can one believe that a single woman would be going around standing in the street and getting a tattoo, at a place on her body that I can hardly mention(even paint brush type) done in the open. And that too when Egypt is a country far far worse than our own conservative North India when it comes to eve teasing and all. Well I would again have accepted the logic of it only being a movie if that was the end of it. But no hear me out yet.

So what do we have here now. Travellers of an international airline who lost their luggage or delayed whatever, don’t get any compensation of any kind from the airline before leaving the airport and are expected to go around in a strange land without any clothes or money. Mr. Director how much can I take in the name of having been made for the masses logic. Even the masses are not so stupid.  And then out of nowhere emerges a mother. GOD why did I never find a mother of this kind during any of my trips abroad. Granted Happy was a little more handsome, but then we are both stupid clumsy Punjabis after all.

The mayhem and my description of it will continue friends in just a minute, but let me write a few lines of appreciation where they are rightfully due. After all I was never known to be partial or biased to anybody. Javed Jaffery as Mika Singh has truly enthralled each time he appeared on the screen. This must be one of his better roles in recent times. Of cource the issue here is that he hasent even done any role that I recollect recently. And so also Om Puri, provided authentic rustic Punjabi dialoges and looked the part of a perrinially drunk villager albeit with a heart of gold.

I did promise you not to be destracted from the main task at hand by a few flashes of good performances. So we carry on from where we had left off.  A very interesting twist of fate turns the King into a vegetable, well that too happens so often even in real life so what to talk of the reel one. But what makes me label the comedy as slapstic is the manner in which our very own stupid Happy Singh gets to take over his empire specially in the presence of so many stalwarts including his own very ambitious brother. Now we have read so many of those Sardar jokes seen whole websites devoted to Santa Banta, but I just cannot digest them to be shown as so stupid. They are very intelligent and determined members of our community. Now someone will again point out that this whole thing has nothing to do with religion or cast, after all almost all kinds of minorities of India have been shown to act stupid in various movies at some or the other time, so why not here and now.  But all said and done I think showing someone so foolish is not a reflection on any religion or cast, it’s a slap on the whole human race. Some protests in the cities of Punjab do not seem out of place to me.

That 4-5 fellows can take on the might of the combined opposing mafia forces again beats intelligence. But hey what the heck, dear Akki himself says when you come for this movie leave your brains behind. So friends lets make one final attempt again to evaluate this whole mayhem without the light of rationale guiding us.

Now even in the dark, I fail to see the light that the director so much wanted to spread in our lives. There is no humour(slapstic or otherwise) except in some places that are few and far between. Ladies in humorous roles have done better in each and every case before Neha Dhupia attempted it. She is neither humorous nor sexy. Katrina Kaif is thoroughly wasted. Akki darling is all over the place, but he has far greater talent than this. He has made himself look totally stupid here. I don’t know whether to hail him as a great actor on that account or to denounce him for having totally wasted his talent.  Whatever little genuine humour is there is provided by either Om Puri with his really good acting or by Javed Jaffery with his stupendous and real portrayal of a hard of hearing and semi blind ambitious brother of a mafia don.