Calling Yamla Pagla Deewana 2 a joke would amount to a compliment.  And I am in no mood to extend such courtesy.

The purported comedy with a little less than half a dozen Deols on board – Dharmendra, sons Sunny and Bobby, daughter-in-law Lynda (it’s her story) and grandson Karan (as assistant director) is a 155-minutes long giant bore.

It’s not like the first one in the series was paradigmatic of Deol togetherness but at least it had *some* storyline and camaraderie. Also, the humour, which mocks their individual images or takes light-hearted digs at the Santa-Banta/’Canada’ milieu provided the Sameer Karnik version genuine hilarity.

But the sequel, directed by Sangeeth Sivan, is unimaginably insipid and tedious. And no orangutan, dragon, unicorn or dinosaur can rescue a mess like this. There are, I counted, three witty (read mildly funny) lines in all of YPD2. And there’s a good chance, you’ve heard all three (featuring Dharmendra, of course) in the promo.

What you get instead are a bunch of stale gags by wobbly caricatures even as you pointlessly wait for something droll to happen.

Meanwhile:
* Sunny Deol screams like a woofer speaker and 30-40 baddies in black suits take off like airborne Mary Poppins.

*He also takes on half-a-dozen Sumo wrestlers and juggles them about like bagels; it’s all very nauseating, never-ending.

* Bobby Deol and Neha Sharma bond over Salman Khan’s movies and giant cut-outs. (Psst, Neha: Prem naam hai mera is Prem Chopra’s punch-line not Bhai’s.)

* Bobby Deol, again, channels one of Johnny Depp’s stylish beard ‘n’ hat looks to pass off as a pseudo artist who looks up Salvador Dali on Google. He calls himself Q so that the makers can squeeze in jokes like ‘Qunique’ that nobody laughs at.

* Two orangutans, one’s called Einstein, the other wears a pink tutu skirt (also jokes nobody laughs at), burn the grass floor to the beats of Sheila ki jawani.

* Annu Kapoor speaks in a fake British accent that makes Katrina Kaif’s fake Hindi accent sound good.

* Kristina Akheeva speaks in a fake Hindi accent that also makes Katrina Kaif’s fake Hindi accent sound good.

* Johnny Lever and Sucheta Khanna treat YPD2 like a Halloween costume party and show up every few minutes dressed up like super heroes, martial artists and movie characters.

* Anupam Kher addresses himself as Dude, looks like a bad cross between Jeff Bridges (in The Big Lebowski) and Lucius Malfoy and mouths inanities like, ‘Mainland China phone karo, Bruce Lee ke pote Dead Lee ko.’

Other than its amateurish logic and moronic action, the screen is devoid of any chemistry or vigour in its wit.

Dharmendra spends most of his time in the backyard, taking a swig of whiskey from his hipflask, twiddling his thumbs, looking bored in a movie that neither uses nor celebrates his whimsical comedian.

He deserves better than this claptrap. And if it’s not too much to ask, so do we.

Stars: 1.5

  This review was first published on rediff.com.