I was anxiously awaiting to see this movie mainly because of Vivek Oberoi. This film was a letdown in EVERY aspect. The basic premise of the movie is Vivek wants to be a cop but things keep getting in the way. Like what you ask? How about the BAD PLOT. The big macho ego trip extravaganza starts when Police Officer Shankar (Atul Kulkarni in a bravado performance) takes a wiz & Kaveri (Diya Mirza) gets offended. As Shankar was about to slap Kaveri, Uday (Vivek Oberoi) steps in to get in a slow motion brawl with Shankar. From that moment on, we are subjected to a monotonous supply of avenging & revenging for THREE LONG AGONIZING HOURS.
Now let’s talk about the various holes in the plot: 1) After the intermission, we see Uday’s best friend since childhood get stabbed to death by some huge goon who was originally going to stab Uday’s 8 months pregnant sister. We see Uday cry in anguish for his murdered best friend YET...why does he befriend this hatchet carrying maniac & even try to SAVE his life towards the end? This does not make sense even by Hindi film standards. Next we move on to plot hole #2) Shankar & his police buddies raid Uday’s parents house & burn his Police Officer Registration papers. The dad & mom are stunned & speechless & crying. Uhm...what good would it do to burn a piece of paper? Don’t they have Uday’s registration in the computer at the police station? Or at least a damn xerox copy of it? I mean, we are talking 2003 here & not 1953. Plot hole #3) Uday befriends a non-corrupt police officer whose daughter is murdered by Shankar. This kind police guy knows who the killer is yet he hasn’t killed him yet? I’m sorry but if you’re a cop & another fellow cop killed your little girl, wouldn’t you do anything to get this guy killed or punished? There are probably more pot holes but I’m already ruining the movie for you by telling you the plot so I suggest you should suffer the same fate I did by just watching how utterly HORRID this movie is. I’d also like to add that the dance sequence where vivek was rolling around in mud on the rain drenched streets of Bombay was NOT sexy. They should have done the rain scene in the Yana Gupta number simillar to the ’Ishq Kamina’ dance in ’Shakthi’.
The very few highlights: Oh goody, something positive to say! Okay, I thought Atul Kulkarni stole the show. Vivek was eye candy but he lacked the spark & the depth that he had in ’Company’. I guess it was a pretty heavy film for him to carry considering that he was the male lead & he’s fairly young. But come on, if your male co-star outshines you in each & every scene, then you know you’re in trouble. As for Atul, he was a revealation! His depiction of an over the top villain of a cop just blew me away. Atul Kulkarni is always consistent in his performance. He was superb in ’Chandni Bar’ but he is BRILLIANT in ’Dum’. In my eyes, this was an Atul movie & not a Vivek movie. Another plus was Diya Mirza only because she really does look beautiful. Can’t act to save her life but OMG, her face is perfect. Now for the much talked about Yana Gupta dance sequence: It was good. Very risque with lots of cleavage, leg & even derriere. Supermodel Yana of course looked ravishing & might I say a bit too phirang looking for my taste. There was one scene which was directly stolen from the Hollywood movie ’From Dusk Till Dawn’ where the hatchet carrying goon drinks wine off of her thigh-high stiletto heeled boots. Now for Vivek: Okay, he’s undeniabley HOT but so what? The muscular physique & sexy bedroom eyes can only go so far. As good looking as he was, he simply wasn’t convincing as an actor in this particular movie. The other musical numbers seemed forced, bland & under budget while all the money was spent on the Yana Gupta sequence with her various changes of attire, makeup & lighting effects. That was the only lush part of the film as the rest seemed like a REALLY bad American B-Movie.
Suffice to say, I would not go see this again even if you held a loaded gun to my head. The plot stank, the script deplorable & the whole cast SUCKED BIG TIME; not including Atul, of course. Furthermore, I saw this movie here in San Francisco at a local American theatre that was playing ’Gangs of New York’ in the next room. It’s kind of a big deal, I guess since it was advertized in my local paper saying ’’Bollywood Movie Premier of ’DUM’’’ . Before this, one had to drive two hours away to Fremont or Sunnyvale to see anything REMOTELY Indian. I’m glad they are starting to play Bollywood movies in big cities but it sucks that they have to show the lame ones like ’Dum’. It would be nice to actually have an exclusively Bollywood movie theatre where intermissions are allowed because I want my samosas, dammit. The phirang theatres don’t allow intermissions nor do they serve Indian snacks. Popcorn, Fritos & Gummy Bears just won’t do.