It is difficult by itself to make a comedy. However, it is even tougher to actually make a comedy about a comedy. The jokes have to keep flowing, the situations need to be funny, the actors need to have the comic talent and the narrative needs to be filled with gags galore. This is what Rohit Jugraj directed Arjun Patiala aims for as well. At certain places it succeeds, at certain places it falls flat but by and large it stays on to be a largely harmless piece of film.
This is how Arjun Patiala actually stays as a whole, which is a largely harmless affair. You laugh at some of the jokes, you are endeared by the inherent cuteness that Diljit Dosanjh carries as a rookie Punjab cop, you are smitten with Kriti Sanon’s yet another confident and spunky act as a journalist and you do enjoy the moments that Varun Sharma brings on the screen as a junior cop. However, what you wait for is the actually storyline to begin, something that takes its own sweet time.
This means after the stage has been set with the introduction of the characters, the real story begins much later in the screen time. During this time duration, there are some gags that work, some gags that are forgettable and some spooky elements that again lead to mixed results. You like the manner in which the characters are introduced and fun is made of the various song situations in a quintessential Bollywood flick. However, you aren’t particularly enthused when the whole video game kind of narrative unfolds. It seems forced. Period.
This is the reason why you wait for the entire humour to be actually integrated well into the screenplay. Unfortunately that doesn’t turn out to be the case, as a result of which the fun element gets scattered. The movie eventually turns out to be a roller coaster ride where you don’t really soar much or go down with a thud but actually tread on a middle path where there is some excitement in store coupled with moments where you wait for some breezy narrative to engulf you.
No wonder, it eventually turns out to be a film which can be given a comfortable watch while not really turning out to be the kind which would have a memorable appeal in time to come.