The Deol family’s family entertainer is bad monkey business. Literally.

I am a sucker for what I now call old-Bollywood formula. You know, the kind of inconsequential filmmaking that dumbfounded our psyches in the 80’s and the 90’s. Back then, a movie used to be a three-hour family friendly event with quixotically placed dance numbers, a hummable song (or three), and characters showcasing overbearing anguish at one point or another which ultimately led to a bash-the-villains-brains-in climax where the hero gets riddled by bullets but still manages to take out a small gun-for-hire army.

There were about a hundred of these movies made each year – regardless of minor deviations in scale, genre or common sense.

Sigh…those were the days, when those of us born with keen eyes, would show powers of precognition right down to the dialogues and hammy expressions.

While I do pine for the days that be, the very formula crashes and burns in “Yamla Pagla Deewana 2” (YPD2), a semi-linked connection to the hit 2011 comedy; And like the last YPD, this is a yawn-suppressing exercise.

YPD2 pegs down the family angle in place – the movie is as family-friendly as you can expect from Bollywood these days; Missing are the timing, pacing, intelligence and wit. Minor exclusions – NOT – if you are wishing yourself dead by the intermission.

YPD2’s one or two genuine moment’s 0f comedy relief comes from an actor in a monkey suit, so you can imagine the lack of material the movie muddles through in its over 140 odd minutes running time (the monkey – an orangutan – by the way ends up painting an emotionally harrowing picture that flabbergasts the senses into weepy submission).

In the absence of the simian the narrative cavities are filled up with Sharib-Toshi’s lackluster music, and in their absenteeism YPD2 ineffectively piggy backs on Salman Khan’s more successful filmography.

For those of you still interested in the story, here it goes:

Dharam Dhillon and son Gajodhar (Dharmendra and Bobby Deol), con people by the hundreds in Vanarasi as a would-be guru selling the mantra “Yamla, Pagla Deewana”. Sir Yograj Khanna (Annu Kapoor, wasted), a millionaire in trouble, visits them and they fly to England pretending to be uber-zillionaires Oberoi & Oberoi. By now Gajodhar, now Prem Oberoi, and Yograj’s daughter Suman (Neha Sharma), fall in love, while Dharam’s older son, Paramveer (Sunny Deol, redoing his done-to-death innocent Sardar bit) learning of their con, tries to throw a monkey wrench in their plans.

There’s a baddie as well called Joginder Armstrong (Anupam Kher, also wasted), a “Dude” in a space suit, whose necessity to be in the movie is only dependent on the cold hard fact that he was written into it by screenwriter Jasvinder Bath (the story is by Lynda Deol – Sunny Deol’s wife – and Shubhangi Rathod); the same logic goes double ditto for sidekicks Johnny Lever, Sucheta Khanna and the 20-something ninja assassins that launch on Paramveer in a bland night club action scene, somewhere post the intermission. Yes, you’ve seen this before – and, maybe, not necessarily in a better form.

*****Starring: Dharmendra, Sunny Deol, Bobby Deol, Neha Sharma, Kristina Akheeva, Anupam Kher, Annu Kapoor, Johnny Lever, Gulshan Grover, Sucheta Khanna. Directed by Sangeeth Sivan; Produced by Sunny Deol and Dharmendra; Co-Producers Samir Gupta, Sanjay Bhattacharji, Mohit Mehra, Suniel S. Saini, Vinjay Dhanoya; Executive Producer Sanjeev Pahwa; Music by Sharib-Toshi and Sachin Gupta (Aidan Hi Nachna); Lyrics by Kumaar; Cinematography is by Neha Parti Matiyani, with Editing by Chirag Jain. Released by HKC and Sunny Sounds Pvt. Ltd., “Yamla Pagla Deewana 2” is rated U/A. For a moment, I really wondered if a laugh-track would help, YPD2’s ailing predicament.*****