I think you’ll agree with me that Diljit
Dosanjh is one of the most likeable actors
working today.
He has this simplicity and sweetness that connects
whether he is playing a superhero or a cop.
His comic timing is impeccable and there is
an inherent honesty, a lack of artifice that
connects with the viewer.
But even Diljit can’t salvage the train-wreck
that is Arjun Patiala.
The film is designed as a spoof.
The framing device is a scriptwriter narrating
his script to one of those old-school producers,
who wears a white safari suit and gold.
The filmmaker is played by Abhishek Banerjee,
who you might remember as the hapless friend
in Stree.
The producer is played by Pankaj Tripathi.
These opening minutes are the best in the
film.
At one point, the producer asks if Sunny 
Leone will make an appearance.
And, lo and behold, Sunny Leone appears as a character.
This meta, self-aware, movie-within-a-movie
could have been fun.
But director Rohit Jugraj and writers Ritesh
Shah and Sandeep Leyzell
have created a sloppy mess.
Honestly, there were moments when I had absolutely
no idea what was going on.
There are these villains fighting each other, there's a corrupt MLA
and a clueless, vapid television journalist played by Kriti Sanon.
Varun Sharma tries to infuse some enthusiasm
as the hero’s sidekick.
And, the action is jazzed up with emojis, graphics
and played out like a video game.
All of which might have worked better if the comedy
was sharper and the plot wasn’t so incoherent.
Ritesh has won multiple awards for writing
films like Pink and D-Day.
Rohit has created hits with Diljit like Sardaar Ji and Sardaar Ji 2.
But here, both seem to have deep frozen their
talent and worked in a coma.
Speaking of deep freeze, there's this sequence
in Arjun Patiala in which Seema Pahwa and
Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub are stuck in a freezer.
They emerge with their hair standing upright because they're just icicles - it's frozen.
My heart went out to them.
These are two of our finest artists reduced to buffoonery.
Arjun Patiala couldn’t have been funny - even at a script level.
So how and why did it get made?
Early on, the producer says that he’s spent decades making films, but he’s never once heard a script.
I suspect something like that happened with this film.
No matter how low your bar is, Arjun Patiala won’t meet it.
Making movies is hard work and I always try and look for something to recommend in each film.
The only plus here is that it’s short. You’ve been warned.
