Two cops – one grim and grouchy seen it all from India (John Abraham), the other a bumbling but enthusiastic rookie based in the Middle East (Varun Dhawan). A crooked bookie in debt (Akshaye Khanna) who has a star Indian cricketer (Saqib Saleem) kidnapped before the big India-Pakistan final. And a drug addict turned pick pocket (Jacqueline Fernandez) to add some glamor and semblance of a love story. In other words, a wannabe cop buddy action film that tries to Bollywoodize the Hollywood summer blockbuster but is unable to quite pull it off.
Dishoom could have been a cracking fun adventure with the elements it has at its disposal. The trouble is they’ve been put together rather sketchily with few twists and turns. A bromance film of this sort has its tropes and is pretty predictable. It therefore needs much more thought and a lot more work on its screenplay to reinvent and freshen up the genre. And admittedly, the film had an interesting enough premise of two-opposites-that-attract cops working to trace India’s missing Virat Kohli-like star batsman in the Middle East. It should have kept you engaged and got the adrenaline pumping. Sadly, Dishoom is badly written and weakly plotted, particularly in its second half, which all but kills the film.
Extremely poor performances from the hulk-like wooden John Abraham, the looks-good-but-can’t-act-to-save-her-life Jacqueline Fernandez and a surprisingly impactless Akshaye Khanna bring the film down further. Even a special appearance from the now slim and perky Parineeti Chopra (I prefer her chubbier look) doesn’t amount to much. In terms of style and treatment, one can only hope that the oft-repeated, cliché-ridden shots of our heroes waking in slow motion die a painful and torturous death with this film.
On the positive side – there are some elements the film does get right – a surprisingly effective Varun Dhawan, actually showing some good comic timing, for one. Throw in a couple of well-executed stylish action sequences, a typically catchy Pritam composition (Sau Tarah Ke), and above all, freaky cameos by Akshay Kumar and Satish Kaushik. Else, the film, rather weakly directed by Rohit Dhawan, would have been a write off. And yes, on the technical side, it is well mounted with some polished camerawork.
Overall, Dishoom is time-pass enough in its better moments but has little going for it otherwise.
Hindi, Action, Color