By Subhash K. Jha
Film: “Daddy Cool”, Cast: Suniel Shetty, Aftab Shivdasani, Javed Jaffry, Rajpal Yadav, Prem Chopra, Aarti Chabria, Kim Sharma, Sophie Chowdhary; Director: K. Murali Mohan Rao;

Rating: * 1/2

Why remake a shoddy, tasteless British comedy? Why be so fixated on Western entertainment when we’ve so much literary and pulp talent out here?

Just leave aside these vital questions and focus on the ensemble cast of “Daddy Cool” that sparkles with borrowed wit. The Goan setting and the quaint rooms housing distraught emotions keep us smiling.

The setting is a Christian funeral. But at times the funeral jokes have us coughing in embarrassment. The dead man has two sons - a responsible, young bespectacled householder (Suniel Shetty) and a carefree cassanova novelist (Ashish Chowdhary) who flies in jetlagged just in time for daddy’s funeral.

And Sharad Saxena is deadly in his stillness as the dead man.

Interestingly, daddy has a secret in his closet. And that’s Rajpal Yadav, his gay lover.

“Isska matlab tum dono gay ke bete ho!” squeals Aarti Chabria to her screen-husband Suniel Shetty and his brother Ashish.

Ironically after copying everything in sight in the original - from the characters to the dialogues - the desi adaptors get cold feet and decide the gay lover was an imposter.

To be fair to this feisty farce, “Daddy Cool” makes you smile, specially Aftab Shivdasani as a drugged-out goofy lover-boy. He is better than the actor who played the role originally.

Shetty as the responsible son, who is a little tired of shouldering family responsibilitie but nonetheless determined to see the show through, is controlled and comically karmic. His climactic speech in praise of his father is rousing. Rajpal Yadav as the gay lover is superbly restrained.

And then there’s Sophie Chowdhary as the suitably sexy airhead.

Blessedly this farce doesn’t opt for desperate measures. It keeps it cool most of the way.