The first two entries in this series included a film that promised to have outstanding dance numbers (1998's Dil Se) and a genuine classic from the origins of Bollywood (1957's Pyaasa). Now in March we get to a film I had actually heard of before this series began.
It may not actually have been Dhoom (2004), per se, that I had heard of, but rather its sequels. I probably wouldn't have heard of Dhoom 2 (2006) either, as South Asian content was not very prominently advertised in Los Angeles, where I lived in both 2004 and 2006. Rather, it was 2013's Dhoom 3 that I remember seeing on a massive poster that took up a whole building wall here in Melbourne, that piqued my curiosity about this franchise nearly nine years ago. But I couldn't rightly start in on the third film of the series, so Dhoom was my choice for March -- and given the goals for this series, to expose myself to a multiplicity of examples of Bollywood, the sequels will likely have to wait until another year, as simply enjoyment-based rather than assignment-based viewing. Read on if you want to see whether my enjoyment rose to the level of seeking them out.
In watching Dhoom, I consciously wanted to see what a Bollywood franchise looked like, especially one I could tell from the poster was an action franchise. And I discovered that it looks ... pretty much like an American franchise.
In fact, Sanjay Gadhvi's film wears its influences on its sleeve. It is essentially a combination of The Fast and the Furious and Ocean's Eleven ... which also describes the Fast and Furious movies in and of themselves as that franchise moved onward. But in 2004 only two movies in each of those series had been released, and probably only one by the time they started making Dhoom. Of course, other Hollywood influences abound, as the central buddy partnership of a cop and a criminal recalls 48 Hrs. and countless other movies on which the genre of the buddy action comedy was based.
Is resembling these movies a demerit for Dhoom? Hardly. The informal name of India's film industry is a loving homage to Hollywood, so it makes sense that many Bollywood films would be an attempt to bring the conventions of Hollywood to a South Asian audience. Not that those South Asians could not watch the originals, but everyone likes movies that star people who look like them, don't they?
And it's a credible version of Hollywood filmmaking. The action set pieces are good, the comic rapport between the stars is enjoyable, and there's even a use of split screen, which was popularized around that time in the films of Steven Soderbergh in particular.
I'll give you a quick plot synopsis just so you know what we're talking about. Mumbai is being beset by robberies conducted by a gang who ride motorcycles -- I'd call it a biker gang, but then you might be thinking of Harley Davidsons rather than the bikes you see in the poster, which give the film its Fast and Furious flavor. (Hotrodders are hotrodders, whether their vehicle of choice is a bike or a muscle car.) The leader of the gang is Kabir (John Abraham), and in hot pursuit is detective Jai Dixit (Abhishek Bachchan). Kabir is always one step ahead, of course, so Dixit enlists a low-level hustler, Ali (Uday Chopra), using various blackmails to convince him to cooperate and try to infiltrate the gang. The gang increases the complexity of their heists while Kabir taunts Dixit, including one time bumping into him on the street, pretending to be a blind man -- his "proof" that Dixit couldn't catch him even if he were right under his nose.
That should all sound pretty familiar to anyone who was watching Hollywood action movies around 2004. What wouldn't be familiar is that this, too, has dance scenes. I wasn't 100% sure whether Dhoom would participate in the traditional Bollywood usage of song and dance -- some films made in Bollywood surely must not -- but after the cold open heist, a traditional Bollywood number is the first thing we get. It's between Dixit and his wife (Rimi Sen), and it's just the first of about four or five such numbers throughout the film.
Without fail, such numbers always boost the value of the movie for me. Without them, Dhoom is probably a three-star effort. The dance numbers kick it up to 3.5, and even though I'm trying to avoid giving movies that extra half star for no good reason, these dance numbers are a good enough reason. Their syncopation, their joyousness, and their total lack of necessity to the story always puts a goofy grin on my face.
And as mentioned earlier, the set pieces are pretty inventive. There's something about close-combat fighting in the movies I've seen that seems a bit off, but the stunts are pretty fun. For every bad absurd stunt you have -- like this one part where Dixit and Ali, on a motorcycle, simply jump over a group of approaching assailants, without there appearing to be any sort of incline that enabled the jump -- you have a good absurd stunt. The best of these entails jumping a speed boat over a road, across the path of an approaching truck, so someone on the boat could fire shots at someone in the truck. Fun stuff.
What's also fun is the charisma of these stars. Despite assuming central position in this poster, Bachchan is probably outdone in this regard by the smoldering Abraham and the funny Chopra. Then when one of these people appears in a challenging dance number, you think "Oh yeah, not only are they charming, but they can also dance and possibly sing." The film is, probably unsurprisingly, not great on gender equality, but the female member of the gang, the only woman who appears with any consistency, also has real star power. She's played by Esha Deol, and she has magnetism to spare. (Plus, er, sex appeal. That's all I will say.)
I might go into more detail about Dhoom, but I have to say, I chose some pretty unfavorable circumstances to watch it. It was the second movie I watched after the family and I watched Turning Red. It was nearly 10 on a Saturday night when I got started on it, after an insanely busy week that started in Sydney and also included our upstairs carpets being replaced, our car breaking down, a tour for a possible high school for my son, me conducting interviews for an open position at my job (a career first for me), and more Uber trips than I can count. So yeah, I was too tired to watch Dhoom, probably, but I couldn't resist the projector already being set up in our garage for Turning Red. I fell asleep a couple times, but I think they were all pretty short, and I don't think they affected my ability to follow what was happening or enjoy it. Dhoom isn't the type of movie that asks too much of you, and that was a thing I needed on Saturday night. Fortunately it was also short by Bollywood standards, only 129 minutes.
On to April, where it may be time to get back to one of the movies that has been singled out for containing a top ten Bollywood dance sequence. Since I really enjoy even the ones with supposedly "mediocre" dance sequences, that could be a real treat.
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