Singh is King: Nothing to write home about

Singh is King made a major splash on the movie circuit. Akshay Kumar was acknowledged as a real hot item in the past few years, being credited for hits that he gave (Namastey London, Welcome, etc), and not being tarred with the flops (Tashan). He must be doing well enough that Shahrukh Khan must be getting sleepless nights. And then I read that Singh is King had a mega 3 day weekend rush, making more than most other movies that have been released in the past few years.
So, it was with some amount of anticipation that I went to watch this movie; and the reaction at the end of the movie was - another 'Welcome'. I must confess, I enjoyed 'Welcome' while watching it, but immediately after that I was thinking about why I enjoyed such a movie that did not have much of a story, depended on action, and was basically a senseless movie. Singh is Kinng is such a movie, made in the same genre.



The movie was controversial because of the depiction of all the main characters as Sardars / Sikhs, and there was the usual objection from some sikh bodies, but that died down and the movie release went off without the problems that the Sunny starrer 'Jo Bole So Nihaal' did.
The movie starred Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, Ranvir Shorey, Neha Dhupia, Javed Jaffrey, and Sonu Sood. The direction was done by Anees Bazmee, and the movie was produced by Vipul Amrutlal Shah. Music was by Pritam and RDB (the song is Singh Is Kinng). Although Katrina Kaif was the heroine, there were a lot of scenes shot on Neha Dhupia, and she earned a lot of positive reviews. The music also did the job, with the title song being good, and the romantic 'Teri Ore' being superb.
The movie is all about the adventures of Happy Singh (Akshay), who is a simple guy, always ready to help people. The whole village in Punjab where Happy Singh lives is unhappy with another son of theirs, Lakhan "Lucky" Singh (Sonu Sood). He had gone to Australia, got jailed for a drug crime that he did not commit, and after coming out, he had taken revenge and eventually became the mafia overlord. Happy Singh volunteers to get him back to the village, and sets off along with a reluctant Om Puri (there are some comedy scenes between the two). They get into a boarding card mixup, and land up in Egypt instead of Australia. While waiting for the mistake to get corrected, Akshay runs into Katrina in Cairo, and after a few encounters (in which he discovers that she wants to get rid of all criminals), he falls head over heels for her.
Well, he eventually reaches Australia, only to find that Lucky Singh is not exactly eager to get back to his village. Wandering around, he runs into an India lady who takes care of him, and he starts treating her like a mother. In a big coincidence, one of many, Lucky Singh gets injured in a shootout and Happy Singh takes over as the leader of the gang. In another coincidence, Katrina turns out out to be the daughter of the lady who helped Akshay, and Akshay helps her out by pretending that she is still rich.
The rest of the movie is about how Akshay wins over all his detractors, faces many challenges including the fact that Katrina is about to be married off to somebody else, and so on. If you watch the opening scene where Sonu Sood catches a would-be-assassin by jumping off a building while wearing a parachute under his party jacket, catches the killer who is running away in a bike, and then the parachute and Sonu again climb in the air where Sony drops the killer, you can imagine how the rest of the movie would be like.