De De Pyaar De 2 Review: Comedy, Chaos & Chemistry

Ashish Mehra (Devgn), a wealthy, divorced businessman in his early 50s, is deeply in love with Ayesha Khurana (Singh), a spirited 32-year-old architect. The only obstacle? Meeting her parents. When Ayesha’s father Rakesh (Madhavan) - a rigid, retired army man who is just two years older than Ashish - discovers the age gap, he is incandescent. Worse, he recognizes Ashish from a bitter university rivalry decades ago. Rakesh and his wife Anju (Gautami Kapoor) devise a zany scheme: they’ll host a family gathering at their hill station home, invite Ashish, and systematically humiliate him until he bolts. Their arsenal includes embarrassing childhood stories, a competitive drinking game, and an arranged “accidental” encounter with a yoga instructor who claims Ashish has a weak heart. But the plan backfires - Ashish’s charm, Ayesha’s stubbornness, and Rakesh’s own marital insecurities (he feels invisible next to Anju’s old flame, played with oily glee by Javed Jaffrey) turn the weekend into a war of egos and, eventually, unexpected bonding.

Director Anshul Sharma understands that this premise works only if everyone plays it straight-faced. Devgn delivers one of his more playful performances in years - his Ashish is a silver-haired smooth talker who uses self-deprecation as a shield. Watch the scene where he tries to do “rock climbing” on a kids’ jungle gym to impress Ayesha’s nieces; Devgn’s physical comedy is surprisingly deft. But the real fireworks come from Madhavan, who channels a smug, petty, utterly believable patriarch. His Rakesh is not a cartoon villain; he’s a man terrified of losing relevance. The film’s best sequence is a dinner table argument where Rakesh lists every reason Ashish is wrong for Ayesha - not just age, but ambition, lifestyle, and the fact that Ashish once stole his girlfriend’s notes in college. The dialogue crackles with nasty specificity.

Rakul Preet Singh does her best with a thinly written role; Ayesha is mostly a referee between the men, but Singh’s comic timing in the film’s most absurd scene - a “truth or dare” where she forces her father to admit he still irons his socks - is gold. The supporting cast shines: Ishita Dutta as Ashish’s pragmatic daughter Kittu offers the film’s reality check, while Meezaan Jafri as Ayesha’s brother provides the “young person” commentary, rolling his eyes at the elders’ buffoonery. Gautami Kapoor is a quiet revelation as Anju - her weary smile carrying decades of unspoken marital compromise.

However, the film’s middle section sags dreadfully. A subplot about Ashish’s business rival (Tarun Gahlot as a slick investor) feels transplanted from another movie, and a 20-minute detour involving a rain-soaked flashback to Rakesh and Ashish’s college days reeks of padding. The tonal shifts are jarring: one moment it’s a farce about a man accidentally eating a weed-laced brownie, the next it’s a somber monologue about loneliness after divorce. The climax, where Rakesh and Ashish have a heart-to-heart on a cliffside, works because both actors ground it, but it also exposes the film’s central compromise - it never fully commits to critiquing age-gap romance, instead reducing it to a “two old guys learn respect” story. And the ending, with a cameo that sets up a sequel hook, feels rushed.

Pros

• Ajay Devgn and R. Madhavan’s electric rivalry - their scenes are pure fun.
• The film is genuinely funny when it embraces physical and situational comedy.
• Rakul Preet Singh and Gautami Kapoor elevate underwritten roles with charm.
• A few surprisingly tender moments about aging and parental vanity.

Cons

• Overstuffed plot with irrelevant subplots (the business angle is dead weight).
• The age-gap debate is skirted, not solved - no real discussion of power dynamics.
• Tone lurches between slapstick and melodrama without smooth transitions.
• Runtime feels excessive; a 20-minute trim would sharpen the comedy.

De De Pyaar De 2 is a film that wins you over despite its flaws, largely because it never pretends to be high art. It’s a big-screen comedy with loud performances, predictable emotional beats, and a few genuinely wise observations about how men, regardless of age, often behave like boys when their ego is threatened. The chemistry between Devgn and Madhavan alone is worth the ticket price - they spar like old pros, and their eventual truce feels earned rather than saccharine. If you can ignore the bloated middle and the ambiguous message about age-gap romance (the film seems to ask, “Does it matter?” then shrugs), you’ll leave the theater smiling. It’s not a must-watch, but for fans of the cast or anyone craving a harmless weekend watch, it’s a warm, slightly chaotic yes.