I had written a review for the movie Dhoom 3 sometime back. It never got published anywhere, so I am posting it here.
Finally the wait is over for so many fans; the latest installment of the Dhoom franchise is here. With a star cast that promises to be a powerful movie, both in terms of acting and action; this is one movie that everyone has been waiting so earnestly all through the year. Dhoom 3 however, happens to be the perfect example of how spectacular, disappointments turn out to be. A story that smells of Christopher Nolan all through; it just hangs on for the average movie goer. One would expect that a movie which copies from The Prestige and The Dark Knight Rises would have a good story atleast. But unfortunately, that is not the case with Dhoom 3.
Sahil Khan (Aamir) is the son of a circus owner who commits suicide infront of his son after being forced by the Western Bank of Chicago to close down his business in 1990. After almost 25 years, the son decides to kill the bank that killed his father; and we are transformed into modern day America, where inexplicably the building that once used to host ‘The Great Indian Circus’ still stands intact. No one had the audacity to take down a perfectly good structure in the middle of a very important city and let it just stand there full of cobwebs. Amazing!
Now, Sahil already robs two barnches of the bank, when the city police; clueless and fed up decided to call in super cop ACP Jai Dixit (Abhishek) and his sidekick Ali (Uday) to help them out; because the thief robs the bank and leaves a message in Hindi. Two things are really surprising; what is India’s obsession with being an ACP always and why didn’t the police in America think of someone else to call, maybe CIA or FBI? But as they say, everything is possible in Bollywood. Leaving away the unimportant detail of how one man can rob two different banks, his modus operandi or his intelligent planning, the film instead focuses on how Sahil tries to dupe ACP Jai into thinking that he is helping him with the case whereas in reality he was stealing valuable information from Jai. So weak is the story at some points that you wonder whether this is really an Aamir Khan movie or an elaborate BMW ad.
At some point in time, we see the sexy Asian lady who can sing and dance like liquid electricity a.k.a. Katrina Kaif or lady long legs. Fortunately for the movie goer, the director, Vijay Krishna Acharya has very prudently left any dialogues for the other actors and spared Katrina from making an acting fool of herself again. Limiting her outfits to sports bras, circus outfits and skimpy clothes that gets removed layer by layer, we do not notice that Katrina has absolutely no impact on the story whatsoever. Her appearance in the songs seems not only unmotivated but unjustified and absolutely unnecessary.
Now coming back to the main plot, at some point after robbing the third bank successfully we are finally face to face with the real reason for Sahil’s success. Concealed from everyone, there exists his autistic twin brother Samar Khan. Hidden by his father for a magic trick, we now get the full picture, while the ACP is caught red-faced having failed to prevent the robbery and also apparently falsely accusing Sahil, and so he is asked to leave the country. But in true Bollywood style he stays back and decides to take things in his hands. He somehow gets to know about Samar and befriends him to try and trick him into surrendering. But Sahil, the evil brother foils everything for Jai and again decides to rob the last branch of the bank. This last robbery is so effective that a major national bank is crippled irrespective of so many insurance agencies and what not. We again see a chase sequence which seems to be copied from Batman. Interestingly, in all the chases that takes place, only one gun shot is fired and it miraculously hits the intended target. Amazing, how inefficient American police can be in terms of firing a gun at a robber who is within shooting range most of the time.
In the last few minutes of the movie, we are faced with an epic Bollywood style scene where both the criminals commit suicide like their father before them inspite of Sahil telling Samar to live on a good life with Aaliya (Katrina) after having decided to barter the evidence with ACP Jai in return for Samar’s freedom. ACP Jai speaks eloquently how evil is sometimes done for good and how sometimes criminals also do the right thing. The movie ends and perhaps the ACP still remains an ACP having yet again failed to capture the criminals alive. So ends the story of Dhoom 3.
The film inspite of having so many negatives, has a few positives too. In the entry scene of ACP Jai, we see how an Indian auto has the strength of breaking away brick walls one after another without any scratch in its windshield It just makes you proud of the ubiquitous Indian auto. The dance sequences of Katrina are a treat to watch, even if the music of Pritam is missing the touch of the music that we saw in Dhoom 2. The VFX effects seems more realistic than lots of other current movies, still the director and the VFX experts would do some good to themselves if they once again learnt some of the basics of physics and mathematics.
A franchise that has created such a name and has such a huge fan following should have given something better than what we got. Perhaps, Dhoom 4 (if there is one) would be better than this. Still, Dhoom 3 gets full points for direction, cinematography and special effects and absolutely no points for story.
Title: Dhoom 3
Director: Vijay Krishna Acharya
Cast: Aamir Khan, Abhisekh Bachchan, Katrina Kaif, Uday Chopra
Rating: 2.5 stars