Vipul Shah. Anees Bazmee. Akshay Kumar. Katrina Kaif. Four names for whom success has become a habit. That makes SINGH IS KINNG the most awaited movie of the season. Must add, the wait was worth it!

You know the rules when you watch a hardcore entertainer: Just don’t look for logic. If you do, too bad for you, for you would never enjoy a film of this genre and more specifically, SINGH IS KINNG.

Anees Bazmee’s films are very high on entertainment. The plotline may be paper-thin, perhaps ludicrous and farcical, but when did Bazmee ever promise a SCHINDLER’S LIST or a SAVING PRIVATE RYAN? SINGH IS KINNG works because it delivers what it promises: Full on entertainment!

Akshay Kumar plays Happy Singh, a bumbling Sikh in a small village in Punjab. He spends his time chasing hens and generally wreaking havoc.

Fed up of his antics, the villagers send him away to Australia on the pretext of bringing back Lucky Singh (yeah, they got really creative with names in this film), a villager who has become a mafia don Down Under, so that Lucky’s ageing parents can meet him.

Accompanying Happy is his friend, Rangeela, played by Om Puri, (it pains me to see one of India’s best actors stuck in such mindless roles). Somehow the duo land up in Egypt, just long enough for Happy to set his eyes on Sonia (Katrina Kaif), fall in love and do a flashy dance sequence with the pyramids as the backdrop.

Happy now heads to Australia to convince Lucky to give up his erring ways and come back to the village in India.

From here on, the film is a series of accidents, both real and intended. Lucky almost gets killed, Happy takes his place as the King (of what, we are never told) and we realise that random foreigners are trying to kill Happy/Sonia (at this point I didn’t even want to know why).

The climax is predictable. Of the cast, Katrina Kaif performs marvellously – by that I mean she looks ravishing and even manages to speak Hindi, which is what is expected of her anyway. Ranvir Shorey is wasted as her obnoxious fiancé, as is Om Puri. The rest of the supporting cast look the same and act the same, pulling out guns at will and shooting people in crowded malls.

Akshay Kumar is stuck in a role that honestly does nothing for either his comic ability or action skills — but he still performs it with conviction.

Anees Bazmee has a flair for writing great entertainers that work big time with the masala-loving junta. If you’ve loved NO ENTRY and WELCOME, you’d love SINGH IS KINNG too. This time, Bazmee shares the writing credits with Suresh Nair and the duo come up with some real wacky episodes. In terms of production design, this is Bazmee’s most lavish fare so far. It’s a grandiose product.

Pritam’s music is already popular and it compliments the goings-on completely. ‘Bhootni Ke’, ‘Jee Karda’ and the title track stand out, while ‘Teri Ore’ is easy on the nerves. Ben Nott and Sanjay Gupta’s cinematography is top notch.

Akshay Kumar takes rapid strides with SINGH IS KINNG. Sure, you’ve seen him in comic fares time and again and perhaps, there might be a doubt, Will he carry it off yet again? Oh yes, he does! There’s no saturation point as far as this actor is concerned. He holds your attention in every sequence, irrespective of how strong the scene is, and that’s the biggest compliment for any actor. SINGH IS KINNG without Akki is like an ocean without marine life. Akshay rules!

Categories: Features, Movie Review, Singh is kinng
Tags: Akshay Kumar, Anis Bazmee, Katrina Kaif