De Dana Dan ending explained: is the hotel chaos worth it?

The final stretch of De Dana Dan (2009), starring Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif and Suniel Shetty, sends everyone crashing through a hotel at once, and our verdict is simple: Priyadarshan did it again. It's total chaos, but somehow it works, and we'd call him a genius at this kind of comedy.

Now when we see Priyadarshan's name on a film, we fully expect silliness. We were reminded of Garam Masala, which we saw recently, and Hera Pheri, which was just as crazy, with so much happening at every turn.

The hotel climax in De Dana Dan left us debating whether it was graphics

The rooftop escape and the slide down through the hotel had us wondering how they pulled it off. We went back and forth on whether it was graphics, and we couldn't tell. We'd noticed Red Chillies credited for visual effects and wondered what effects a film like this even needed. Unless they shot it on a real slope, the water at the bottom looked like a swimming pool at that point.

We also enjoyed the fast cutting and editing: open a door, shut a door, open a different one and someone else appears. We wondered how a script like this gets written, since it must be pages and pages of chaos, with stage directions for everything happening plus all the dialogue. That's a huge achievement.

Paresh Rawal and Akshay Kumar push the comedy to 11

Our favorite was Paresh Rawal, who brings the energy and shines in this kind of comedy. Akshay Kumar commits fully, and his physical comedy is amazing. The two were together in Garam Masala too. They say comedy has to be played at 11 or 12, and the note from a comedy class was always louder, faster. Still, every actor brought different motives and energy, so it felt grounded despite the madness and we never felt overstimulated. We think the casting was very well done.

The script tracks every small detail too: the curry in someone's eyes, the wrong photo, the wrong room, the wrong lady. You'd need a detective board with red string to connect it all.

The dog plot and the villains of De Dana Dan

We didn't expect where it went, since we spent so long with Nitin and his boss that we thought the dog kidnapping would succeed. Getting the dog out fast was a good idea, because filming with children or dogs is hard, and maybe it was just one day of shooting. The dog was very cute, though.

The sleazy man was disgusting from the start, and we felt for his poor wife as his fortune vanished. Chadha, Paresh Rawal's character, wasn't a good person either, trying to use his son for money because of his debts. We're fine with him getting his due, and with Nitin's boss getting hers, because she treated him like a slave. That's forced labor, and it's illegal. We were glad Nitin and Ram found a way out, even if it wasn't fully honest. After 20 years of round the clock work, that money is probably about what he was owed.

Katrina Kaif's role and the 2009 soundtrack

We split on the women. There was a wish that Katrina Kaif's character and the other girlfriend could have been more useful, maybe in an updated version where the girls help the guys. The counterpoint: then there's no chaos and no film. In real life, though, help your partner if you're serious about them.

We noticed many of Priyadarshan's recent films haven't rated as highly, at least on IMDb, but sometimes you have to make money to do the work you really want. The music was catchy and still makes you move, even from 2009. With a love of hip hop, dancehall, Jamaican music and Afrobeats, we heard a Jamaican feel we'd never heard mixed into Bollywood before; Chamak Challo maybe came close, but not quite. Singapore is an island like Jamaica and Goa, so island life finds its way. It was a fun, crazy film.