Dhoom 2 - the review

Whenever I see movies like Dil ka Rishta, Sillunu Oru Kadhal etc. I feel an inexplicable urge to write "reviews". I guess it's my subconscious mind telling me that such masterpieces should not go unnoticed. Or more truthfully, I wish to spread the pain ('A burden shared is a burden reduced' goes the old jungle saying). And thus, I present to you: Dhoom-2.

I have not seen Dhoom-1 and the friends who invited me to watch Dhoom-2 assured me that Dhoom-1 had been total timepass and had had good entertainment value. Hence, they reasoned, the sequel couldn't be too bad. The first warning sign should have been the good review from Rediff, yeah, the very same website which gave a oh-so-good review for the oh-so-terrible Jaan-e-mann. However I ignored the warning sign.

Dhoom 2 should have been more appropriately titled as "A Series of Unrelated and Unbelievable Stunt Sequences". The movie kicks off with a train in the Namibian desert. A queen (who suspiciously looks like what Hrithik Roshan(HR) would look if he is made up as a grandma) is travelling on the train with a precious crown. Our man of the moment, HR, is an internationally wanted thief who steals precious things from various parts of the world but manages to never get caught.

All of a sudden, out of nowhere, HR lands on the train with a parachute. Then he gets into the train, disguises himself as the queen (easy, since the queen looks like HR as I said earlier) and steals the crown. Then jumps back onto the roof. At this point, the bumbling (but of course) security guards accost him. HR easily dodges the bullets with a foldable snowboard (I kid you not) and evades them . Anyways, then he mysteriously disappears with the crown.

Tada - the beginning credits began to roll to the background of HR dancing to the remixed "dhoom machale" song. My jaw which had hit the ground and rested there for the entire beginning sequence began to get back to my face. The train sequence had been one of the most logicless, brainless and unbelievable heist sequences I have seen in a long time. But as I watched HR gracefully doing his dance moves (boy, he CAN dance) I thought maybe the movie would get back to planet earth after that "spectacular" opening sequence. Hahaha, nice hopes!

Abhishek Bachchan (AB) and Uday Chopra (UC) as the cops get introduced into the scene next. Rimi Sen (RS) plays AB's pregnant wife. She has exactly 2 minutes in the entire movie - all of which are spent sitting on a rocking chair and shrieking. Bipasha Basu (BB) gets introduced as the hot cop who is on HR's case. Aishwarya Rai (AR) is an erstwhile thief who is assigned to befriend HR to help nab him - her freedom in case of HR's successful capture being the carrot. I guess that covers the main cast of characters - phew!

Anyways, the whole story is about how AB/UC/AR try to capture HR. BB gets a double role - she plays her own twin when the scene shifts to Brazil. Since both roles just require her to show off her well toned arms and body, I could not spot the difference.

There, I am not going to tell you the story scene by scene as I usually do in my "reviews". Actually, that is because there is no story to tell. This movie relies very heavily on star power and this shows in every scene where the actors are more intent on striking a pose which is most flattering to them in the frame instead of emoting. Of the guys, HR and AB look good (what about UC you ask? Hahahahaha - you got to be kidding me). Both BB and AR seem to have worked out a lot for this movie and show off their "hard work" with the aid of skimpy costumes (really, instead of being called actors, they can be called Fashion TV mannequins).

We all actually thought AR looked nice - until she opened her mouth. Even normally, AR has got an extremely annoying voice. In this movie, as if adding the cherry to the cake, she speaks in a weird way which involves using the word "like" in every other sentence and referring to herself in third person. Her character, named Sunehri, says things like "Sunehri is very good. Sunehri like trusts you." etc. A couple of scenes of AR and her whiny voice is enough to drive anyone up the wall - I was surprised when HR did not murder her due to extreme aggravation!

Anyways, the movie jumps from one unbelievable stunt sequence to the next. My eyes, which had popped out sometime in the first 30 minutes remained hanging out till the movie ended. As the movie wound towards its end, I wouldn't have been surprised if a "stunt" sequence had involved HR sprouting wings and flying.

But then came the classic scene: AB is chasing HR and HR jumps into an abyss. I was like "there, HR is going to start flying now". But no, instead, a parachute balloons open over him - our man obviously carries parachutes, ropes, snowboards and the like with him when on the run for exactly such emergencies. But what about AB? As the cop, would he also be running around with an in-case-of-emergency parachute? As we watched, AB too jumped right into the abyss - but no parachute ballooned open over him.

Ah - so maybe AB would sprout wings and start to fly I thought. But no - instead, AB expertly steers himself mid-air to where HR is falling and then catches hold of him. Then, in a spirit of neighborliness which was touching to watch, AB and HR share the same parachute and land safely on the ground and resume fighting. Wah, wah, wah!

I have just described two of the wonderful "stunt" scenes. The movie has many more such gems. But please don't take this as a recommendation to go watch the movie in the theatre. The only reason the seven of us who went to watch Dhoom-2 sat in the theatre for the whole movie was because each of us had paid $9.50 of our hard-earned money to suffer through it.

One thing I have to say for the movie - the cinematography is excellent. The places are shot beautifully. The stunt scenes look quite professional. Too bad that the director spent so much time on the movie's looks and the stars' looks that he did not find time to actually write a story. The supposed twists are ultra lame and can be guessed from light years away. Whole sets of characters disappear from the narration to never appear again. As I said before, logic is something which is totally left behind.

Leaving your brains at home or coming to the theatre with sackloads of credulity will help you sit through the movie. Unfortunately, we did neither - and we paid for it :-(!