Stuck in a rut, the film is rife with clichés

2018, the jokes have worn thin. How many times can you clap when the same old ‘dhai kilo ka haath’ bit is served up as a punchline?

The film is rife with clichés. Dharmendra is the lady charmer, Sunny is the man with a good heart but short temper, Bobby is the black sheep who eventually sees the light. The film opens in Amritsar with ‘Balle balles’ and ‘Puttars’, ‘lassi’ and ‘daaru’ galore. Part of it is set in Gujarat; cue ‘kem chos’, ‘saru ches’ and a steady supply of dhokla.

Sunny and Bobby play brothers, the first a famous vaid, his brother a get-richquick type. Sunny has a jadibooti medicine that cures everything from impotency to pimples. Big Pharma wants the formula at any cost and bribes Bobby for it.

Dharmendra is their tenant, a lawyer who wins cases on the strength of his charm alone. Kriti Kharbanda plays a Gujarati surgeon who loves her booze and should have had her licence revoked a long time ago.

Dharmendra represents the brothers in their suit against Big Pharma. The writing is lazy and inept. Director Navaniat Singh does little to improve matters. A film that should have been wrapped up in 90 minutes meanders on for nearly two and a half hours.

The second half has a lot of veteran actors in walk-on parts. Shatrughan Sinha shows up to say khamosh, Asrani does a cringe-worthy comic act, Rekha riffs on old hits. There’s Salman Khan in there too. None of it helps.