Superb! In principle I don’t approve of violent movies without a social message, so I can only give Dus an 8/10. But I really liked it a lot.
Despite ’’good guys vs. bad guys’’ action not being my cup of tea, I decided to see Dus because of a couple reviews on here by people I trusted. I’m also a bit of an Abhishek Bachchan fan, and I wanted to see how Zayed Khan would do after liking him in Main Hoon Na.
I’m definitely glad I saw the movie.
This review is SPOILER-FREE because it would be horrible to spoil the shocking twists.
The main strength of the movie is how virtually everything that happens is important to the plot or to characterization. Some reviews say the movie has no story, and is ’’style over substance’’, but I’m confused why people think that when there are such clever plot twists and virtually everything that happens in the movie is seen to be important in some way later. Nothing is ’’random’’. Even the much-maligned love stories are not random -- they add depth to the characters, and add layers to the twists and dilemmas that happen near the end of the movie.
Songs are nice, even though a couple of them are partly in English.: There are four main songs. Three are faster and catchy-sounding, and the other one is slow and thoughtful. All are good, but the picturization for one of them, an item number in the second half, is predictably oversexed. Surprisingly even the English lyrics interspersed in a couple of the songs don’t grate. I might expect lines which are something like ’’Whooo’s that girl? I really gotta know, I really need to know ... Whooo’s that girl? Who dat girl! Who dat girl! Where’s she from? ... Whooo’s that girl? I now now see her, I gotta meet her!’’ to grate; however, the ’’Dharma Productions’’-style picturization on this particular engagement song that those lyrics are from, a song called ’’Chham Se’’, makes up for the silly opening English https://lyrics. The song is mostly in Hindi anyway, and if those lyrics are also silly, I’m less able to tell considering I don’t know Hindi, hehe. (I rely on subtitles.) That picturization and song actually ended up being my favorite. My second-favorite is the melodious, romantic, wistful ’’Jaaniya Ve’’.
The movie looks as good as a Hollywood action movie, and at the same time retains enough of the emotions, songs, romance, comedy, character development, and other ’’masala’’ elements of Bollywood to satisfy. There’s explosions and ’’cool’’ camera stuff which are really impressive. There’s even a big crash into a lake. But the movie doesn’t let these impressive effects, which deserve to be seen on the big screen, obscure the emotions of the characters -- their fears, motivations, joys, and sorrows. I cared for them -- well, most of them. There’s still love stories too, and songs which have already been mentioned, and comic relief.
There’s even a touching family connection.
The movie is male-dominated, but still has a significant female star cast and a couple notable scenes for the women. Frustratingly, the male heroes (played by Sanjay Dutt, Abhishek Bachchan, Zayed Khan, and Sunil Shetty) are all developed more than the female ones. But there are still four female stars with notable roles in the movie (Dia Mirza, Esha Deol, Raima Sen, and Shilpa Shetty). Shilpa Shetty has some good action scenes and angsty scenes, with her relationship to the other members of her anti-terrorist squad shown in short, but clear, moments. Esha Deol is also a key member of the anti-terrorist team, and in a love story -- but her scenes are somehow less memorable. Raima Sen gets a couple good dramatic confrontations with Sunil Shetty (plus she screams memorably at a scary moment). Dia Mirza has less screen time, but her character’s plight motivates the other characters.
Generally, acting is fine, except by Zayed Khan. The movie doesn’t really call for a lot of dramatics though. It’s not challenging acting-wise (yet even then, Zayed botched his role by re-doing Lucky from MHN ... Argh!). The biggest challenge for the actors was probably the action sequences.
Supporting characters are memorable and well-played. Roy, Ashraf, Jambwal, Hemmat Mehendi, Asif, Irfan, the ministers, Adler -- all have their moments. A couple suicides are especially shocking.
Weaknesses: Weaknesses of the movie include -- 1) the aforementioned oversexed item number, because of its oversexed nature; 2) going slightly overboard with a ’’cool’’, jumpy presentation; 3) uncharacteristic passivity from one of the female characters near the end -- it would have been better if her love story was developed stronger earlier, making her final choice more meaningful and moving; and 4) Zayed Khan’s ’’stoned or drunk’’ look and his non-acting (which worked in MHN, but not in this movie).
Some people have mentioned plot holes, but I didn’t notice them.