Dhoom

Dhoom (2004)

Runtime: 129 minutes

Directed by: Sanjay Gadhvi

Starring: Abhishek Bachchan, Uday Chopra, John Abraham, Esha Deol, Rimi Sen

From: Yash Raj Films

Here's something different from me, me reviewing a movie from India. I haven't seen too many, and yet due to their sheer zaniness I really should see more. I'll return tomorrow night.

Throughout my life I have seen films from many different parts of the world, but I haven't seen too much from the country of India, despite how extensive their film industry is, my knowledge of how wacky Bollywood is and the absolute batsh*t crazy lunacy that is their action movies. Clips of insane action scenes both old and new are not hard to find online. I decided I should see a well-known Indian movie from recent times, one that I figured would be wacky, as I heard it's like the first Fast & The Furious. Boy, did I not know what I was in for!

It's true that this film was like the first in the long-standing franchise with Dominic Toretto and Brian O'Conner (except that it's young handsome dudes on motorcycles who do thefts while on the highway) although I was also reminded of another film from '04... Torque! I do need to watch that again so I can review it for the site. Nothing is quite as ineptly hilarious as Torque but Dhoom has many crazy moments (hell, there's even wire-fu) and Torque does not have several musical numbers, which of course this movie does due to it being from India. Both do share a rather nonsensical plot, so there's that.

The plot is that a straight-arrow cop (to the point of coming off like a dick at times, to state it bluntly) has to work with a low-level criminal named Ali who also engages in illegal street races on his bike in order to try and stop the quartet of thieves who do those brazen thefts. Note that all the thieves work at a PIZZA PARLOR that is called... PIZZA PLACE. I swear this is true. Also, Ali is a quite horny man always looking for a future wife; that is how he meets the cop's wife, whose name is Sweety as... well, why the hell not? The hero is named Jai Dixit, after all. Although, I think that Michael Bay would be even hornier if he ever watched this! Much of this is shot in a flashy way. It's not just the musical numbers that are filmed like a music video. The camera moves about a lot, there's slow motion... I think he'd view this without pants on.

The movie's definitely uneven and it ends up being where the unintentional comedy is funnier than much of the actual comedy. Still, due to the madness on display and how stupid it got at times, I managed to enjoy this nonetheless and the rating seems appropriate.

I do have a random thought... from what Indian films I've seen, it's always been where quite often you hear words or usually entire phrases in English. This motion picture is in Hindi and the other times I've experienced it it was either that language or Tamil... I'll just say it's another weird aspect of that weird but cheerfully berserk movie scene.