DABANGG - 2 - banking too much on formula
I took my daughter Pallavi to
Dabang-2, the sequel to Dabang, (though she doesn’t like Salman Khan) as
welcome party to Delhi for a month break.
I too did not expect much from
Dabang-2, except a time pass mass masala movie, but it failed to be the same
too. May be because of change of
Director to Arbaaz Khan, it lost its sharp and sleekness as the first in the
franchise, though to be reasonable to AK, he didn’t do all that bad job.
All the characters of Chulbul
pandey’s family have been carried forward, united and close-knit this time
(Dimple Kapaida photo hanging on the wall).
The stage was shifted to Kanpur and the hunch man changing to the vastly
(but hugely wasted) talent Prakash Raj.
First of all the menace of
crime has not been properly built up except one kidnap incident to enable
Chulbul pandey to make a typical grand entry which is no different from any of
his movies from Wanted.
Dabang-2 suffers hugely due to
lack of storyline, it has too many action-scenes and songs (with as many as 3
item numbers) in the small 2:10 hours movies.
The saving grace being the light hearted comedy specially by the sidekicks
of Chulbul pandey viz., chobeji,
sharmaji and importantly the Commissioner – the guy who acts in Yatra.com advt
with Salmaan and Vinod Khanna (probably for the first time in his career).
Salmaan, looks-wise looks
smashing, slim, trim and not looking like uncle of Sonakshi who must be more
than 20 years younger to him (like the way Sharukh was looking in JBHJ) and
conveniently banked heavily on the Dabang brand and the purple patch which he
is enjoying for the last 3-4 years. But alas, the same cannot be said about his
mobility, which is looking crippled for quite some time. Whether it is lavishly mounted
action-scenes or gyrating with item-numbers the maximum movement is restricted max to a radius of 3-4 feet –
that shows that our heros just stand and pump in muscles rather than doing
cross-country to improve mobility. In
dialogue delivery he fell back on his time tested Big Boss/Dus ka dum
style. But one need to give it to him that he still
commands huge fan base with all the theaters (some good 300 plus shows per day
in Delhi) completely sold out. Sonakshi, who resemble Hema Malini in many
angles, need to be appreciated for looking sober and graceful in saris and long
hand blouses, in these days where heroins are giving vamps a run for their
money in their dress sense or otherwise.
Prakash Raj, for whom I went to
see the movie to monitor his progress in Hindi movies, has been a
disappointment, not because of lack of efforts from his side, but because his
character has not been properly developed and given the power punch dialogues,
like in Singham, in which he excels. Moreover I could not really make out whether
he dubbed himself (which he normally does in all languages including in Hindi)
or changed his modeling to suit a UP based character (though no specific
dialect was used) which taken sheen of his dialogue delivery. He
just sleep walked through the character, such role having been done by him hundreds
of times in Telugu and Tamil movies. I wish he chooses his roles carefully in
Hindi (though you cannot blame him for not resisting the temptation of working
in Salmaan’s home production). Having
seen hundreds of his Telugu movies where he assayed wide variety of roles, I have
no doubt in my mind that he has all the potential to become the next big thing
in essaying villan and charcter actor roles and steps into the large shoes of Pran
and Amrish Puri.
The cable supported action-scenes
are becoming very stereo-typed and getting on nerves. For me who has seen all the top Telugu/Tamil
stars doing it for the last 8 years or so which later on imported in the Hindi movies
from `Wanted’ onwards and religiously
followed by all stars (who all of a sudden want to become action-stars). The good news is that off-late the
action-scenes of some of the second rung stars of Telugu/Tamil movies are showing some
change and hope it will prevail. We
have enough of stunt man flying all over, breaking all and sundry and their
bones in the bargain (and our mecho hero just waving his hand) and their
bouncing back when banged on floor like a spring ball.
The strange phenomena I observed
in Delhi was that whereas the Hindi producers are jostling with each other to remake
top South Indian block-buster, the viewers too are going the South Indian audience
way, with deafening clapping and whistling right through the movie, the opening
shots of Salmaan, items numbers and for all songs.
You will not miss anything if you
give a `miss’ to Dabang-2, but if you cannot resist the temptation to go to a
masala-sprinkled movie go and get head-ache the way I got.
S. Prabhakar
23.12.2012
