Dhoom (2004)

Directed by: Sanjay Gadhvi | 129 minutes | action, thriller | Actors: Abhishek Bachchan, Uday Chopra, John Abraham, Esha Deol, Rimi Sen, Amir Farid, Sanjay M. Singh, Ajay Padhe, Ayesha Raza, Manoj Joshi, Rohit Chopra, Palash Dutta, Sanjay Keni, Mehul Bhojak

Take some story elements and stylistics from ‘The Fast and the Furious’, the engines from ‘Torque’, character dynamics from ’48 Hours’ and ‘Heat’, a roof a la ‘Ocean’s Eleven’, and over-the-top cable stunts like in ‘The Matrix Reloaded’. Mix it up. Then throw in a Bollywood sauce of music and pulpy acting, and you’ve got ‘Dhoom’, Sanjay Gadhvi’s new stunner.

Not original? Well, it just depends on how you look at it. The way in which the elements from different films come together to create a new product makes the film unique to a certain extent. A Bollywood expert will also tell you that the “cops and robbers” elements from ‘Dhoom’ mainly pay homage to a classic Bollywood genre, which is here combined with the style and adrenaline of the (modern) Hollywood action film.

Whatever the “inspirations” of the film, what matters is that the film works well on its own and has enough flair to entertain the viewer, without being (too) distracted by thoughts of the referenced film(s). . Fortunately, this has been the case for a fairly long time.

The beginning is still very ‘Torque’ and ‘Furious’-ish: Accompanied by the title song we see roaring engines, portrayed with fast cuts, split screen, and lots of close ups of helmets and gasping hands. The biker gang robs a money truck on the highway, which is quite reminiscent of the opening of ‘The Fast and the Furious’. But hey, it looks nice, and once we get to the scene with two of our heroes, the cop Jai (Abhishek Bachchan) and his wife Sweety (Rimi Sen), there’s no doubt we’re in a Bollywood movie.

After we see Jai wake up, via the nowadays so popular montage of short jump cuts, and get out of bed in his apartment, his (and our) gaze turns to Sweety present in the living room. We are treated to the kind of shot for which Laura Mulvey’s theories about the male, voyeuristic gaze in cinema seem to have been invented. It somewhat resembles a soft-erotic film: we see Sweety on a kitchen staircase painting the ceiling, dressed in short jeans and a thin top. In a traditional voyeuristic shot, her body is slowly framed from bottom to top. Of course she bends over at some point, so that her décolleté is clearly visible. Moments later, a sensual dance is started to the sounds of an Indian version of Tarkan’s “Sikidim”. Dancing, the two end up in the garden, where Sweety is of course sprayed wet by a garden hose, for which she has to change. Now we see her appear in a teasing babydoll. All cheesy, but tasty nonetheless. Any healthy boy with hormones in his body knows for sure: this is a five star movie!

But it’s not just the men that get their money’s worth; for the women, there is also plenty of eye candy in the film, especially in the form of actor John Abraham. It is often downright comical how he appears on the screen. A tough look, a naked, tanned torso, and a light stubble. The rest of his biker gait is cast from the same stubble mould, by the way, which is hilarious to watch in their introductory scene, where they take off their helmets one by one.

The story is wafer thin: cop tries to round up a biker gang with the help of a riotous street racer. The entertainment value must therefore mainly come from the form in which the story is cast and the performances of the characters. Especially Ali (Uday Chopra) is a bull’s eye in this regard. He is eagerly looking for a nice woman and falls in love with every nice one that crosses his path. It is very funny to see how he gets visions of the future every time, in which the woman in question is sitting on the back of his motorcycle, in different outfits (including a wedding dress), only to see these images literally go up in smoke when it turns out that the woman is not available. His optimism and tenacity are also very contagious. When he encounters the seductive Sheena (Esha Deol) in the middle of the road, who is supposedly having car trouble, he bursts into a comedic song and dance number, and doesn’t leave her alone for the rest of the film. He is convinced that they are meant for each other, no matter what difficult “circumstances” arise. Now and then his behavior gets a bit tiring, but Chopra manages to provide the film with enough humor and energy for quite a while.

Abhishek Bachchan also delivers competent work, and forms a good interaction with Uday Chopra, in which both actors give each other plenty of space. The ladies don’t have much to do in the movie. They really just need to be nice or punchy and show up every now and then for a musical interlude.

It’s a shame that the film weakens a bit in its second half. A casino is robbed in a very easy way, while a scene in which Bachchan pretends to be drunk doesn’t come through well. In addition, the film’s subsequent climax is a pretty blatant copy of ‘Matrix: Reloaded’, and is simply too over-the-top. If the last half hour of ‘Dhoom’ had been better cared for, some characters had been given a little more (figurative) “body”, and certain scenes or acting moments had been sharpened up, ‘Dhoom’ could have been an ideal, mindless action movie . Now it is a case of just not. Regardless, the film seems to be very successful with audiences. After all, the sequel is already in the works (something that rarely happens in Bollywood).