A vault full of gold may be quite continental, but diamonds are a
wacky action comedy screenwriter’s best friend, which is why I’ve been
seeing them a lot lately. It makes sense; while diamonds can be hard to
sell and easy to trace, they’re also small, portable, shiny, and easy
to recognize, and everybody knows they’re worth a lot of money, but they
don’t necessarily know how much. It’s much easier to show your cast of
misfits scrambling for ten billion dollars in diamonds than ten billion
dollars in gold or cash.
In Awara Paagal Deewana (2002), the diamonds in question belong to an unnamed, dying Don (Om Puri). The Don wills the diamonds to his son Vikrant (Rahul Dev), daughter Preeti (Preeti Jhangiani), and son-in-law Guru Gulab Khatri (Akshay Kumar). The will requires that all three of the heirs show up at the Bank of New York to claim the diamonds, but if one or more has died before the diamonds can be claimed, the survivors can atill claim the diamonds as long as they produce a valid death certificate.
Preeti and Guru are happy to abide by the will. Preeti is a nice girl, not a gangster, and she’s not really interested in the diamonds, anyway; all she really wants is a way out of her loveless marriage to Guru. While he’s no Munnabhai, Guru is the obligatory sympathetic gangster; he doesn’t have a heart of gold, but he doesn’t kill people for fun, and he’s careful to abide by both the letter and spirit of an agreement. Vikrant, on the other hand, is a casually treacherous psychotic, so he promptly frames Guru, both for the murder of the Home Minister, and for shamelessly copying the lobby scene from The Matrix.
Despite the national manhunt, Guru manages to disappear. Vikrant puts a twenty million dollar bounty on his head, but he’s already safe and living in suburban New York, right next door to henpecked dentist Anmol (Aftab Shivdasani). Anmol recognizes Guru, thanks to his gangster-obsessed secretary Tina (Aarti Chhabria), and he makes the mistake of telling his horrible wife Mona (Amrita Arora) about the gunda in the neighborhood.
Mona and her equally horrible mother Paramjeet (Supriya Pilgoankar) send Anmol and his equally henpecked father-in-law Manilal (Paresh Rawal) to India to collect the bounty. Of course it’s not that easy; Vikrant, casually treacherous psychopath that he is, has no intention of giving the money to a random, unarmed dentist. Instead, he decides to send his henchmen Yeda Anna (Sunil Shetty) and Chhota Chatri (Johny Lever) to New York; they can stay at Anmol’s place and keep an eye on Guru until Vikrant is ready to show up and kill him personally. In return, Anna will get the twenty million dollars, and Anmol and Manilal can spend another day not being shot in the head.
Of course, it’s not all bad news. While in India, Anmol also meets and falls madly in love with Preeti, and vows that whatever it takes, he will bring her happiness and free her from her loveless marriage, assuming he isn’t killed by her short-tempered, well armed, and very stubborn husband, or the crazy gangsters he’s playing host to, or her brother, the Don who doesn’t like to share and has a habit of breaking deals and killing witnesses. (Maybe it is all bad news.)
Anmol may be having his worst day ever, but it is a fantastic set-up for an action comedy. Awara Paagal Deewana has a clearly defined McGuffin, an assortment of characters of varying degrees of wacky, star crossed lovers, protagonists both cool and nice, and plenty of excuses for choreographed violence. The problem is that the movie goes on too long. The climactic fight/car chase/scramble for the diamonds (set in the desert outside of New York City) starts off well, but by the time the monster trucks showed up I was rolling my eyes and checking my watch. Even after the real villain has been dealt with, Anmol and Preeti have resolved their relationship issues, the movie has to throw in a final fight between Akshay Kumar and Sunil Shetty; normally this would be a good thing, but at that point in the movie, there really isn’t very much at stake. Awara Paagal Deewana may be a little too much of a good thing.
In Awara Paagal Deewana (2002), the diamonds in question belong to an unnamed, dying Don (Om Puri). The Don wills the diamonds to his son Vikrant (Rahul Dev), daughter Preeti (Preeti Jhangiani), and son-in-law Guru Gulab Khatri (Akshay Kumar). The will requires that all three of the heirs show up at the Bank of New York to claim the diamonds, but if one or more has died before the diamonds can be claimed, the survivors can atill claim the diamonds as long as they produce a valid death certificate.
Preeti and Guru are happy to abide by the will. Preeti is a nice girl, not a gangster, and she’s not really interested in the diamonds, anyway; all she really wants is a way out of her loveless marriage to Guru. While he’s no Munnabhai, Guru is the obligatory sympathetic gangster; he doesn’t have a heart of gold, but he doesn’t kill people for fun, and he’s careful to abide by both the letter and spirit of an agreement. Vikrant, on the other hand, is a casually treacherous psychotic, so he promptly frames Guru, both for the murder of the Home Minister, and for shamelessly copying the lobby scene from The Matrix.
Despite the national manhunt, Guru manages to disappear. Vikrant puts a twenty million dollar bounty on his head, but he’s already safe and living in suburban New York, right next door to henpecked dentist Anmol (Aftab Shivdasani). Anmol recognizes Guru, thanks to his gangster-obsessed secretary Tina (Aarti Chhabria), and he makes the mistake of telling his horrible wife Mona (Amrita Arora) about the gunda in the neighborhood.
Mona and her equally horrible mother Paramjeet (Supriya Pilgoankar) send Anmol and his equally henpecked father-in-law Manilal (Paresh Rawal) to India to collect the bounty. Of course it’s not that easy; Vikrant, casually treacherous psychopath that he is, has no intention of giving the money to a random, unarmed dentist. Instead, he decides to send his henchmen Yeda Anna (Sunil Shetty) and Chhota Chatri (Johny Lever) to New York; they can stay at Anmol’s place and keep an eye on Guru until Vikrant is ready to show up and kill him personally. In return, Anna will get the twenty million dollars, and Anmol and Manilal can spend another day not being shot in the head.
Of course, it’s not all bad news. While in India, Anmol also meets and falls madly in love with Preeti, and vows that whatever it takes, he will bring her happiness and free her from her loveless marriage, assuming he isn’t killed by her short-tempered, well armed, and very stubborn husband, or the crazy gangsters he’s playing host to, or her brother, the Don who doesn’t like to share and has a habit of breaking deals and killing witnesses. (Maybe it is all bad news.)
Anmol may be having his worst day ever, but it is a fantastic set-up for an action comedy. Awara Paagal Deewana has a clearly defined McGuffin, an assortment of characters of varying degrees of wacky, star crossed lovers, protagonists both cool and nice, and plenty of excuses for choreographed violence. The problem is that the movie goes on too long. The climactic fight/car chase/scramble for the diamonds (set in the desert outside of New York City) starts off well, but by the time the monster trucks showed up I was rolling my eyes and checking my watch. Even after the real villain has been dealt with, Anmol and Preeti have resolved their relationship issues, the movie has to throw in a final fight between Akshay Kumar and Sunil Shetty; normally this would be a good thing, but at that point in the movie, there really isn’t very much at stake. Awara Paagal Deewana may be a little too much of a good thing.
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