Vashu Bhagnani and David Dhawan get together once more and attempt to recreate the earlier magic of their comedies with 'Do Knot Disturb', starring their favourite actor, Govinda. The film recreates the laughs and is a typical product from the house of David Dhawan, but it lacks that extra bite, a quality which would have made it a superb comedy. On the face of it, 'Do Knot Disturb' is enjoyable in most parts but the punch seems to be missing from the movie. Somehow the humour or the situations are not crazy and mad enough as one would have loved to expect.
Briefly, the film's story is about Govinda, the philandering husband of a rich businesswoman played by Sushmita Sen. He has a girlfriend, Dolly (Lara Dutta), who ditches her hot tempered boyfriend, called Diesel (Sohail Khan) for Govinda. But Govinda gets caught when a picture of him and Dolly reaches his wife. But what saves him is the unintentional presence of a third person in the frame. This third person is Govardhan (Ritesh Deshmukh), who walks in to the frame unawares. Govinda now palms off Govardhan as Dolly's boyfriend. To keep his suspicious wife off guard, he hires Govardhan to pose as Dolly's boyfriend for a few days. Meanwhile, his suspicious wife has hired a detective, played by Ranvir Shorey, who is an old college friend who has a crush on her, to spy on her husband. The two lay a trap for Govinda and as per the plan, Sushmita pretends to take off to meet her mother in another town. Realising that it is too good an ocassion to miss, Govinda hires a presidential suite in a five star where he can romance Dolly. On the other side, Sushmita and her detective friend also land up at the hotel. In fact, the detective also catches Govinda and Dolly redhanded. And then the fun begins as chaos reigns supreme. This is David's cue to really go berserk and have the audience rolling in the aisles. But here is where the film fails to take off and touch the dizzying heights of madness. The groundwork has all been done. But here is where the film fails, if one can call it failure. It is still funny and crazy, but not the crazy enough. This is where the punch is missing.
However, what is superb about the film is its screenplay. One has to hand it to Dhawan, who has honed the art of making a slapstick comedy to perfection. 'Do Knot Disturb' is quite a copybook example of how the plot of a comedy should be constructed, specially the last half, when all the film's protagonists land up at the five star hotel and everybody seems to be in search of the other. The pace has just the right degree of frenetic energy to it. Another factor which plays in the film's favour is its superb casting. One can hardly think of anybody else but Govinda in the role of the straying, henpecked husband. The actor has done all of this, many times before, and he seems to have polished his act and gone beyond perfection. The actor revels in his role in 'Do Knot Disturb' and brings out the same degree of madness which one has been accustomed to seeing from him. In short, he is quite brilliant in the movie. If earlier, Govinda had the likes of Kader Khan and Johnny Lever to keep him company, now he many worthy lieutenants in the shape of a Ritesh Deshmukh, a Ranvir Shorey, a Manoj Pahwa and a Rajpal Yadav. All these actors prove to be a superb foil to him and together, they take the film forward towards a most enjoyable conclusion. Both halves of the movie have been very well constructed and Dhawan manages to lay out his case quite well before moving into the second half. One only felt that it may have been worth the while to establish the relationship between Govinda's and Sushmita Sen's characters in a little more detail. The way the movie turns out, Sushmita hardly has anything worthwhile to do in the proceedings. While she manages to retain her charm and ravishing looks, she is totally upstaged by the younger and fresher looking Lara Dutta. Lara brings to the movie, the same quality that Sushmita did in the earlier days. Lara looks hot and sexy, just as her roles demands, and also manages to get into the role of Govinda's girlfriend perfectly. She is quite expressive and displays a flair for comedy as well. Ritesh may well go on to inherit Govinda's crown. The actor is turning out to be a superb comedy actor, very expressive and with an inherent sense of comic timing. He complements Govinda perfectly and matches him step for step in the dance sequence. The other outstanding performance comes from Rajpal Yadav as the crooked porter and Shorey as the detective who looses his memory. Himani Shivpuri, who plays Ritesh's mother in the movie, is quite superb. In fact, that entire hospital sub plot is a class act by David. The sequence where the mother is watching Deewar on TV and substitutes Amitabh Bachchan for her son is quite hilarious. Himani Shivpuri, who has generally been typecast in films, reveals her flair for comedy. In short, 'Do Knot Disturb', is by all standards a good comedy. But going by the expectations from a Dvaid Dhawan film, one feels that the director could have stretched the parameters of laughter slightly more and doled out more of the mad moments.
