After a long time I could say happily that I saw a ‘total paisa vasool’ entertainer with this week’s big release – Singh Is Bliing starring Akshay Kumar, Amy Jackson and Lara Dutta, directed by Prabhudheva.

Coming to the story, the movie starts with a bang introducing Akshay Kumar as Raftaar Singh with the Tung Tung song. Set in the Bassi Patna village somewhere in Punjab, Raftaar Singh is a good for nothing young man pampered by his mother (Rati Agnihotri) who is given an option by his father to either take up a job with his friend (Pradeep Rawat) in Goa or marry an obese girl from the village. Raftaar chooses to go to Goa. Meanwhile, somewhere in Romania Sara’s (Amy Jackson) life is in danger and therefore her multi-millionaire don father (Kunal Kapoor) sends her to Goa to his friend who also happens to be Raftaar’s boss too. Sara comes to Goa with the main intention to track down her long-lost mother.

Raftaar is given the job to take care of Sara and as he is not able to speak or understand English, his sidekicks (Arfi Lamba and Anil Mange) hire Emily (Lara Dutta) to work as a translator. Emily with her intentional wrong translations create a lot of confusion between Sara, Raftaar and his sidekicks.

There is another parallel story where Boxer a local goon is trying to buy the casino owned by Raftaar’s boss, which he refuses to sell. In the bargain there are small fights happening and in one such fight Sara shows her fighting skills and injures Boxer and his men. In turn Boxer informs Marc (Kay Kay Menon) the man who is trying to hunt down Sara and kill her about her whereabouts. Soon the story takes a change. Will Sara find her mother? Will Sara and Raftaar fall in love and lead a happy life or would she get killed by Marc and his men? To find out watch the movie.

Performance-wise Akshay Kumar does a wonderful job as always. His comic timing is superb and his scenes especially with Lara Dutta, Arfi, Anil and Amy is quite hilarious. Amy Jackson as Sara is a perfectly cast. As her character happens to be born and raised in Romania all her dialogues are in English. Moreover, she has executed the fight sequences very well and it is a joy to see her kick some ass. Lara Dutta in her comeback role is superb. It is a small role but she has done justice to it and raises a lot of laughter throughout her screen presence. Arfi Lamba and Anil Mange as Akshay’s sidekicks have done a good job and so are the rest of the supporting cast including Rati Agnihotri, Pradeep Rawat and Murali Sharma.

Prabhudheva after his last disaster Action Jackson is in full form with Singh Is Bliing. Prabhu has entered into an unchartered territory and has come out with flying colors. The story, screenplay and dialogues are good. However, the climax could have been more powerful and the second half could have been edited better by Steven Benardi.  Cinematography by Dudley is wonderful. Music is credited to Manj, Sajid-Wajid, Sneha Khanwalkar and Meet Bros. Every song is a chartbuster and gels perfectly with the story and setup.

On the whole this movie will appeal to anyone and everyone.

My Verdict: ****