Dhoom 2

A.V: **
E.V: ***

Ever wondered why tortilla chips with salsa sauce is so tempting?? There’s something in the visual appeal. Try having the former by itself and it tastes bland and salsa doesn’t taste half as good with regular wafers. But put the two together and you will be left asking for more. Yashraj were obviously aware of this little fact when they were making Dhoom: 2.  It has all the ingredients that appeal to the urban audience – fast action sequences and gizmos for the kids, scenic locales for the family, sufficient eye candy for the guys and of course a ‘Greek-God’ ( here I quote my female friends!!!) for the ladies. And like any popular Hindi movie it needs you to suspend all logic completely.

The plot line per se is quite thin. DCP Jai Dixit (Abhishek Bachchan) and his team (Uday Chopra and Bipasha Basu) are on the trail of an international crook. This guy, Mr A (Hrithik Roshan) is a master of disguise and has a taste for the most exclusive articles the world over. He is assisted by smart alec small time thief Sunehri (Aishwarya Rai) in his travails. So while Jai is figuring out his modus operandi, Mr A is planning his next move. The action stretches across Namibia to Mumbai to Rio as the age old game of chor-police continues.

The film rests squarely on the shoulders of Hrithik. This is the first time since Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai that he exudes sheer screen presence. From dancing to action to romance, he revels in the role of his first ever grey character. His chemistry with Aishwarya is sizzling (the bungee jumping scene is breath taking). Abhishek Bachchan on the other hand looks a tad jaded, continuing with his angry cop image from the last movie. However his scenes with Hrithik are powerful and they match each other line for line. Aishwarya looks in amazing shape but her lingo grates on the nerves after some time. Bipasha adds the required oomph to the movie but she has very limited scope here otherwise. Uday Chopra is hilarious and he is probably the only memorable character here other than Hrithik.

Dhoom: 2 pays compliments to lot of Hollywood enterprises, (Oceans Eleven, Catch me if you can, The Matrix) unofficially of course! The cops and robbers game is something which Yashraj has tried in Bunty aur Bubbly also. So when the question of making a sequel to Dhoom must have come up, they added the now necessary ‘international’ angle. It does for Brazil what Krissh does for Singapore. The music is a big letdown, ‘Crazy Kiya Re’ being the only hummable track. The disguises worn by Hrithik are one of the highlights as the makeup truly transforms him.

Just as tortilla chips and salsa despite being mouth watering would not be the ideal diet food, enjoy the spice while it lasts but don’t expect anything more.

- Suprateek Sinha