It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say Diljit Dosanjh is the Elvis Presley of Punjab. His fans dote on him, and rightly so. Dosanjh has a casual unassuming charm that is all his own. But I’m afraid if he is seen in any more films like his latest Babe Bhangra Paunde Ne, he will lose his fan base before I can say “Teri toh!”.
No one, not even the most workless wastrel, would waste time on this junk feud about three Punjabi wastrels in Vancouver taking on the inmates of an old folks’ home. We must presume that all three protagonists are Punjabi since they speak the language. Everyone including a South Indian insurance agent ,speaks in Punjabi. Whether this is a case of artistic license or plain idiocy, I leave audiences to decide.
Not that I would recommend this work of labored lunacy to anyone. Babe Bhangra Paunde Ne is so awful, it makes Diljit’s last Punjabi film Honsla Rakh look like an instant classic. There too he played an irresponsible shifty Punjabi in Canada. But the scenes with his screen son were delightfully ditzy.
Nothing in Babe Bhangra Paunde Ne makes any sense, least of all the film’s motivation to be made: why would anyone presume that any audience would want to see a film about three slackers trying to “adopt” an old man from an old folks’ home for insurance money? As they wait for Iqbal(Sohail Ahmed) to kick the bucket, we kick ourselves for believing that Diljit Dosanjh is synonymous with wholesome entertainment.
This is the first time I’ve seen such vulgarity in a Dosanjh film.To give an example: the old man cannot urinate by himself, so one of the three protagonists must hold his penis for the deed. It It does not end there.
“Koi bahot badi baat nahin hai,” Diljit consoles the disgusted piss-agent.
“Bahot badi baat hai,”the agent moans.
Diljit has always been careful of staying away from crassness. But it is not just the vulgarity that is a problem in Babe Bhangra Paunde Ne. It is the mind numbing pedestrianism of the intended comedy. Not one of the jokes lands on its feet. Ever gag makes you gag. Every skit makes you spit. For quite a bit of the screenplay Dosanjh is clubbed with his two unknown co-starts as they play buffoons in broad drear-light.
Sargun Mehta plays the romantic interest with little interest in romance. She spends her time on screen looking like she would like to be anywhere else, but this.
Which buffoon would cast a star like Dosanjh and then make him share the hoax jokes with two sidekicks who have to be at Dosanjh’s beck and call and laugh at his jejune jokes? Clearly the writers (Amarjit Singh Saroon, Naresh Kathooria) thought they were onto something infinitely hilarious. Little do they know.
Sorry, this doesn’t work at all. If Diljit Dosanjh wants to hold on to his immense stardom, he should not fool around with it.
Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based journalist. He has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out.
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