Arjun Patiala movie review: Logic is far and few between in this Diljit Dosanjh, Kriti Sanon film

Cast. Diljit Dosanjh, Kriti Sanon, Varun Sharma, Ronit Roy, Seema Pahwa

Pankaj Tripathi’s movie producer drops the most audacious joke in Arjun Patiala during the first five minutes of the film. Appropriately dressed in a white safari suit and covered in gold, he asks the aspiring director why he is bent on telling him the film’s story. “I have been making films for decades without once listening to any of the stories,” he says with a bemused expression.

Arjun Patiala is designed as a movie-within-a-movie, a satire on ridiculousness of cinematic clichés and done-to-death genres, with cop films as its area of focus. The Diljit Dosanjh-Kriti Sanon film couldn’t have chosen more wisely – there is a lot there to be mocked; or as suits will tell you, it is a low hanging fruit. It is a pity then that the film falls into the same trap, but is far less fun than a Simmba or a Dabangg, or even a south Indian dubbed cop movie – a genre that has kept more than one Hindi film channel afloat over the years.

Diljit Dosanjh plays the eponymous Patiala who has just snagged the job as a sub-inspector in the Punjab Police via a sports quota. His lifelong idol has been Ronit Roy’s DSP Gill who enjoys the hero status that is normally accorded to cricketers and actors in Arjun’s sleepy village. Once he is in the force, Gill asks Arjun to clean up the district and make it crime-free. Arjun goes about setting up encounters between the various criminals in his area with the able help of constable Onidda Singh (Varun Sharma), and romances an intrepid reporter Ritu (Kriti Sanon) in his downtime.