De Dana Dan reaction: a fun but baffling hotel farce

De Dana Dan (2009), starring Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif and Suniel Shetty, turns its hotel setting into a pileup of chloroform, poison and people hiding in rooms. We found it fun, and at times baffling.

Early on, one character's look left us unable to recognize him at all. We also noticed that a pregnant character doesn't look very pregnant, though we put that down to early days.

The De Dana Dan hotel plans: chloroform, poison and room 4017

One character's scheme at the hotel is not well thought out. "He's very poorly planned. Like I would want all the info if I were her." Once the chloroform came out, we could see where it was heading: someone was going to pass out who wasn't supposed to.

Finding the right room is its own problem. There are so many rooms in this hotel, and we kept asking how anyone even knows the room number. The answer eventually arrives: 4017.

Then a substance enters the picture - chloroform or poison, the hosts aren't sure which. "Oh, this poor guy." Another character recovers fast, and the gas keeps flowing. "He had like 18 bottles." One police officer just tells everyone. "What type of police officer is he?" When one character finally gets what's coming to him, our verdict was simple: deserved.

A De Dana Dan farce that stays a comedy

By the time the unconscious bodies are being piled up and hidden, the hotel looks like chaos. "This looks so bad." At one point we just said it outright: "This is so confusing." "It's like mission impossible out here."

The stretch ends with a man falling from high up in the hotel and landing on something below. That landing is where the film's tone shows. "This is a comedy. We can't have him do a splatter from a high-rise hotel."