Ashwni Dhir’s Son of Sardaar is like lassi gone rancid. The most clichéd Punjabi cocktail stripped of even its inane, familiar charm—when bhangra sounds like raspy cacophony and humour intending to be self-deprecatory amazes with its artlessness and dearth of wit.

The only way to sit through ‘Son Of Sardaar’, therefore, is to treat it much as you would a cartoon flick, where all the characters are exaggerated, and larger than life, and all of them do weird things, and repeat the same actions. So Jassi Randhawa ( Devgn) is on a mission in his Punjab village, which should have been simple enough, but gets complicated because of an old enmity between his family and the family of Balwinder Sandhu aka Ballu Paaji ( Dutt). These sons of sardaars then set about reaching the end goal of how old feuds are best forgotten, and how love is the only glue, and all of those other messages, but getting there is mostly painful, not because it is so loud—that’s what Sardaars are, according to this film-- but because it is so dull.

The film is largely designed as an action-comedy. The basic premise of the film is a revenge-drama arising from a family-feud over generations where Billu (Sanjay Dutt) wants to kill Jassi (Ajay Devgn), the last descendant of his rival family. While that makes up for the conventional action element of the film, what adds uniqueness to it is the comic condition that Jassi is safe as long as he is within Billu's bungalow boundaries. Billu's hospitality ends the moment Jassi steps out of the familial frontier and so Jassi has to devise ways to evade his exit from the house. Predictably Jassi also falls for Balli's sister (Sonakshi Sinha).

Alas in this action comedy, the action lacks innovation and the comedy lacks permanence. With action having its limitations, one expects more from the humour quotient but the fun starts just in the pre-interval portions and dissipates soon in the second half. After that the plot keeps beating around the bush with overblown action and underwhelming humour. Too much of time is expended in the exaggerated prologue with multiple disjointed gimmicks, none of which have the expected impact. First Devgn makes an entry, standing atop two galloping horses. Then he dances on the Big Ben clock arm - for no good reason. And finally when he puts his machismo to blatant display, his turban goes in an auto-wrap mode around his head.

A remake of the Telugu hit Maryaada Ramanna directed by SS Rajamouli, who himself whacked the premise from a 1920s Buster Keaton hit, Son of Sardaar is only sporadically entertaining, and peddles the same tired stereotypes of Punjab and Sikhs. A cameo by Salman Khan, sadly, doesn't make up for the film's many flaws.
I'm going with a generous two out of five for director Ashwni Dhir's Son of Sardaar. Even if you're a fan of those loud 80s-style entertainers, this one demands a lot out of you.