De Dana Dan

De Dana Dan (transl. Hit left and right) is a 2009 Indian Hindi-language comedy film directed by Priyadarshan. The story is a partial adaptation of Hollywood film Screwed and some scenes were taken from Priyadarshan's own Malayalam film Vettam. It stars an ensemble cast led by Akshay Kumar, Sunil Shetty, Katrina Kaif, Paresh Rawal and Sameera Reddy.[2] Filming began on 1 December 2008 at Mehboob Studios in Mumbai.[3][4][5] It was released on 27 November 2009 and did average business at the box office.[6]

Nitin Bankar and Ram Mishra are lucky in love, otherwise their life is a big zero like their bank balance. Nitin is stuck as a servant and driver of Kuljeet Kaur, according to the conditions of a loan which his father had taken to educate Nitin. Kuljeet is the owner of many malls, restaurants, and other places in Singapore, where this whole story is based. Nitin is fed up with Kuljeet's dog, Moolchand Ji, who always puts Nitin into trouble.

Ram works for a courier service in Singapore. He had originally gone there to work in Chinese films, but he was not selected. Anjali Kakkad, is in love with Nitin and Manpreet Oberoi is in love with Ram. Both of their girlfriends are rich, and they put a condition – get money or forget us.

Inspector Wilson Parera is on the trail of Harbans Chadda who has nine arrest warrants due to cheque bounces. Harbans is eager to get his son, Nonny Chadda married, so that he can get dowry of the wedding and pay all of his debts. He finalises Nonny's wedding with Anjali, after her father, Kakkad (Tinu Anand), brings up the topic. Also at the restaurant, Harbans fails to meet Anjali due to Wilson's presence, and there, Kakkad meets Pammi Chadda, Harban's second wife, who is almost half of his age. Anjali lies to Nonny that she is pregnant with her lover's baby, in order to cancel the wedding (since she still loves Nitin).

Later at a casino, Harbans meets Mr. Brij Mohan Oberoi. Also Oberoi introduces Paramjeet Singh Lamba(Vikram Gokhale), who is the Indian ambassador, to everyone there. After finding out that Oberoi is one of the richest Indians in Singapore, he lies to Oberoi to fix Nonny's wedding with Manpreet, which finally works out. As he didn't inform Kakkad, Kakkad gets really angry with Harbans. To counter Harbans, Kakkad fixes his daughter Anjali's wedding with someone else.

At the same casino where Harbans met Oberoi, Moosa Heerapoorwala, decides to marry Anu Chopra, a dancer at that casino. After his brother-in-law finds out, he hires a Mafia Don, Maamu, to kill Moosa. Maamu sends his best assassin, Kaala Krishna Murali (Johnny Lever) to do the job. To hide from his wife, Moosa books a room in Pan Pacific Hotel under the name Subair.

To eliminate the problems and earn some money, Nitin and Ram decide to kidnap Moolchand Ji, as that is the only thing 'living' that Kuljeet, the rich lady, loves. But things go wrong – after they reached Pan Pacific Hotel, the place where they decide to stay, they realise that Moolchand Ji has escaped, causing the police to believe that its Nitin who has been kidnapped. Things worsen when Anjali runs away from home and reaches their room. Initially, Kuljeet refuses to pay the ransom to the kidnappers, but after all her customers decide to go on a strike, she agrees to pay the ransom. As Nitin does not want to go back to Kuljeet, they come up with a plan – they decide to get a dead body from Maamu and throw it onto the railway tracks, along with his driving licence, and then spread the news that the kidnappers have killed Nitin.

Harbans' and Oberoi's families come to Pan Pacific Hotel, where the wedding is going to take place. Harbans and Oberoi click a photo to celebrate their families uniting. To give the advance money to Maamu, Nitin waits at the entrance of Pan Pacific with a white orchid flower on his hand, waiting for Maamu's man to come and say the code 'I'm Maamu's man'. But Kakkad arrives at the hotel, and chases Nitin into Harbans' room. Nitin tries to hide under the bed, but there is no place for him. At the same time, Harbans enters his room and to hide from Harbans, Nitin hides inside the wardrobe. Fed up of his calls, Harbans throws his mobile into the wardrobe and locks it, causing Nitin to get stuck in a wardrobe. Also Kakkad mistakes Nitin's room with Lamba's room and thus, mistakenly attacks him and his wife, which makes Kakkad to shave off his moustache.

Meanwhile, Nitin calls Ram and instructs him to give advance to Maamu's man, and he gives the advance to Kaala, by mistake. Things get worse at the sangeet ceremony when Nonny spots Anjali, and he requests her father to return their money after coming to an agreement. Harbans mistakes Anu for Anjali, which causes great confusion later. Moosa's photo, gets exchanged with Oberoi's photo, so Kaala tries to kill Oberoi. Also, Pammi demands money from Harbans, in order to purchase new clothes and jewellery, but actually she wanted to elope with her lover, Arjun. Harbans requests her to take money from Lamba, and she mistakes Moosa for Lamba. After giving money, Moosa tries to molest Pammi, which makes Harbans furious at Lamba. Also Anu mistakes Lamba for Moosa and tries to get close to her, and after getting caught, she reveals that Lamba promised either to marry her or give her money, which makes things more worse.

Wilson reaches Harbans' room with Lamba's help and searches for Harbans, and opens the wardrobe to find Nitin, and mistakes him as Harbans. In an attempt to kill Oberoi, Kaala ends up falling onto Ram's and Nitin's truck, which they take to pick up the ransom. While picking up the ransom, Nitin gets left behind, and is taken to the hospital, while Ram takes the money and reaches the hotel, and Kaala is assumed to be the kidnapper, as he was on top of the truck. And to top it all, Maamu arrives at the hotel with a corpse that nobody wants. Also at the last attempt to kill Oberoi, Wilson catches him and he reveals that Harbans ordered him to kill Oberoi and also gave him advance. Also police mistakes Kaala being the kidnapper and his name is Harbans Chadda.

In the end, a bomb planted by Kaala enters the water-tank of the hotel, which causes it to burst and make the hotel flood. At the end, Nitin, Anjali, Ram and Manpreet decided to separate since they couldn't find the money suitcase. While they were about to leave, suddenly Nitin sees the suitcase and recognized that it was Kuljeet's suitcase which she gave for the ransom. Immediately Nitin calls Anjali, Ram, and Manpreet and tells them life is not over yet.

The film reunites the trio of Akshay Kumar, Sunil Shetty and Paresh Rawal with Priyadarshan, who directed them in the first Hera Pheri film. This is the first time the trio has acted together after Phir Hera Pheri in 2006, although Rawal and Shetty appeared in Priyadarshan's Hulchul and Chup Chup Ke. Akshay and Rawal also appeared in Priyadarshan's Bhagam Bhag and Garam Masala.Asin Thottumkal was approached for Katrina's role but she refused it due to less screen time.

The characters 'Nitin Bankar' and 'Ram Mishra', played respectively by Akshay Kumar and Sunil Shetty, are names of respective long-lasting spot-boys. Nitin Bankar is Akshay's spotboy, while Ram Mishra is that of Sunil.

An article in Slate Magazine describes the shooting of a flood scene in Goregaon studios with locally hired white people.[5] The film took 80 days to complete.

De Dana Dan collected Rs. 220 million in its opening weekend in India, thus making it the tenth biggest opening weekend of all time at the time of its release.[7] It collected 341.9 million at the end of its first week and more than 650 million by the end of its box office run in India.

Meanwhile, it did very well overseas debuting at No. 9 position in the U.K collecting £308,029 [approx. Rs. 23.4 million] on 48 screens in its opening weekend, with the per screen average working out to £6,417. In the US, it debuted at No. 20 position and collected $772,377 [approx. Rs. 35.7 million] on 69 screens in its opening weekend, with the per screen average working out to $11,194. In Australia, it debuted at No. 12 position and collected $96,597 [approx. Rs. 4096,000] on 14 screens in its opening weekend, with the per screen average working out to $6,900. At the end of its run in the U.K it collected £560,943. At the end of its run in the US it collected $944,979. At the end of its run in Australia it collected $200,000.[8]

Critical Response

It received mixed reviews from critics, who appreciated performances of the cast, humor, cinematography, climax visuals, and score, but criticised for screenplay, narration, and pace.

The film was released on a one disc dual layer format DVD. Its running time is 167 minutes.

Paisa Paisa (complete name: Tu, paisa paisa karti hai, tu paise pe kyun marti hai) is the theme song for this film.[9] The song is produced by Pritam, Composed and sung by RDB, and was performed by Akshay kumar and Katrina Kaif.

The concept was to create a theme with mass appeal, about how money was the driving force behind the film's various acts. This was accomplished by incorporating comedy lyrics with sound effects and a "slight R&B touch" to make it upbeat, danceable, and memorable.[10] The song is sung by Manak-e, a Punjabi singer and was composed specially for the movie by RDB even though the rest of the music was done by Pritam. The music is based upon the Usher hit song "Yeah". This song was originally sung by Manak-E in Punjabi few years back in his album, however on request of Akshay Kumar the song was re-composed and re-released with a mix Hindi-Punjabi lyrics by RDB. The decision was made to use Paisa Paisa as the film's theme song due it being light and up-tempo.[11]

Times of India reported in late November 2009, that released before the film, the song was gaining attention and "rocking the charts".[10] Before the film's release, the tune was already considered one of the film's "fast catching numbers" and a version was being used in the Jharkhand election campaign.[12] Glamsham reported "Paisa Paisa from De Dana Dan is a chartbuster and is igniting the music charts."[13] In December 2009, Daily News & Analysis reported that Paisa Paisa was a current favourite and expected to be a big number for the party season.[14] It was later reported, that while the film itself did not do as well as expected at the box office, the song aided in locating a lost, mentally challenged child when police were informed of the missing child's continually humming the Paisa Paisa tune.[15]