Hi Friends,
I am not a movie freak and don’t quite write movie reviews. My domain is book reviews and I leave movie reviews an area for people who know more about movies than me.
But this one movie made me write a book review. Dus was nothing but a comedy of errors for me.
Let me tell you how.
The Story
Well that part is strong. The movie has got a concept thought there is nothing new in it. But nevertheless for a bollywood movie it was a good concept. The Indian Prime Minister is going to Canada for some function on Indo-Canadian trade ties (I doubt weather they exist or not in reality) and an international terrorist of the ranks of Laden has an operation all set up to blow the PM plus 25, 000 odd people in the stadium where the function is going to happen.
ATC (Anti Terrorist Cell) of India, which seems to work in a fashion of the CIA with all there dark suits and shoulder hostlers, high speed computers, good staff, state-of-the-art technology and talented officers and all, has got 7 days to stop this operation otherwise the ATC will be closed. (What kind of Government stops an anti terrorist department in 7 days, especially a country like India which gravely need such a department, and keep in mind that there guys are Indian CIA. So give them some credibility guys!! I know movies are all fiction but Dus ain’t a star war movie so let’s get closer to reality).
The Direction
The direction of the movie is horrible. Anubhav Sinha who has directed Tum Bin, is the director of this movie. This one too moves with same slow pathetic pace as was of Tum Bin. The movie is weak for most part. It gets a little exciting in the end 20 minutes but until then you have lost you audience. In between it gets so boring people started flirting with their girlfriends, two parents a row above me started planning to purchase Harry Potter for their kids. After the intermission, for first 20 minutes I was wondering what the hell am I doing in this place, I mean I ‘d have finished half a novel in this amount of time but then suddenly a guy asked me for a light and both of us went out for a smoke.
For final 20 minutes of the movie when the Indian ATC team finds the bomb in the stadium in Canada and has got only 17 minutes to defuse it, the movie manages to get it’s audience back and the climax is good.
The Acting
Sunjay Dutt and Pankaj Kapoor are veterans so you can expect brilliant performances from them. Pankaj Kapoor is especially amazing in the movie; surprisingly he gets maximum screen time in the movie. He had done justice with his role, I had just watched Maqbool in which Abbaji (played by Pankaj Kapoor is a tribute to Don Corleone played by Marlon Brando in The Godfather).
AB is good in the movie and he is getting better with every movie he does. Zayed Khan has also done some nice acrobatic stuff and is okay. Sunil Shetty is a completely wasted character which was not needed in the first place. Isha Deol is a good character but there is no opportunity with such kind of a character to act.
But what impressed me was the character of Shilpa Shetty. I was very happy to finally see some slam dunk martical arts action being done by a female actor in an Indian movie. So much for Lara Croft but finally someone accepting that females are changing. Shilpa impressed me the most thought her character got less screen time than it deserved.
The Cinematography
Camera work in the movie is a class act no doubt. The angles at which shots have been taken and the frame itself shows that Indian cinema is maturing. The helicopter shots, the fire and flame shots, the blasts and stunts, the chase shots, every shot is well shot and the camera work is certainly great.
The Music and Choreography
Both are great. Music of the movie is rocking. You enter the hall, take you seat, have a sip of your cold drink and band comes the title song “Dus” with AB and Zayed Khan rocking it all over. The title song is great and so is the item number “Deedar De”. Though this song was not needed but because of the good music and good dancing acts one can yet enjoy it.
The Pitfalls
The movie has a great number of pitfalls. There is an unwritten rule that when you are making a movie on a story where in the life of your Prime Minister is in danger and you are behind a terrorist that you know nothing about, the scope for fitting in emotions is very less. So in that case, if you sister and brother in law get kidnapped and later your brother in law is killed that not makes much of a sense. This is the biggest pitfall of the movie. Hell, hack some computers, investigate some, encounter some others, dig deep into some databases and somehow come with an identity of some sort and then starts the chase stop the mission where in you end up killing the terrorist also. Now that makes for a fine story.
Secondly, the movie is very slow. Though the presentation is good, with all that place and time sequence showing on the screen (which suddenly reminded me of The Bourne Identity of Matt Damon and Spy Game of Brad Pitt), the pace is pathetically slow.
When everyone is busy trying to catch the terrorist why on earth are you giving us flashback of Sunil Shetty’s life where in he happens to accidentally kill his son which was still in her mother’s womb. Recall when I said above that I went out for a smoke, it was this time when they were showing all these useless things.
Amongst some others are the ill defined characters, less then deserved screen time, useless insane stunts, unrelated events etc. The movie is like they have picked up bricks correctly but the cement paste is missing and at times completely missing. Most of the bricks have been chosen correctly but they still need to figure out what a good cement paste is like.
And at this pace it will really need a long time to figure out the correct mixture of cement and water and sand. Currently the sand is more and cement is less!!
Enjoy it,
Khagesh Gautam