Masand's Movie Review: Chandni Chowk... an exercise in excess

Director: Nikhil Advani
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Deepika Padukone, Ranvir Shorey
Chandni Chowk To China is a big, bloated misadventure of a movie with a string of set pieces instead of a plot. There are too many gags, too many action scenes, too many item songs, and too much of everything, in fact. The film's biggest crime, if you ask me, is that it's an exercise in excess.
Akshay Kumar stars as Sidhu, a down-on-his-luck street-side cook in Delhi's Chandni Chowk who some Chinese tourists mistake for the reincarnation of their ancient warrior who alone can defend their village against the kung-fu crime-lord Hojo (played by Chinese actor Gordon Liu). Encouraged and abetted by Ranvir Shorey playing con artist Chopstick, Sidhu leaves behind his father (Mithun Chakraborty) and heads off to China, where much chaos ensues.
Inspired liberally from Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle, the comedy in Chandni Chowk To China, although largely slapstick, is enjoyable for the sheer good-natured goofiness Akshay brings to his character. I'm reminded of that scene in the aircraft where he repeatedly attempts to slam shut a stubborn overhead locker, or then that ingenious song sequence in which he fobs off the bad guys in his bumbling, drunken state. The film's first hour is lighthearted and simple and most of the humor's derived from Sidhu's clumsiness and ineptitude. It's when the film enters its second hour that the cracks begin to show.
The track involving the estranged twin sisters -- both played by Deepika Padukone -- and their reunion with their beggar father is too convoluted and distracting, and it takes away from the film's central story.