Movie Review: 'Dabangg'

Quick:

A meaningless yet utterly entertaining trite story of two poles-apart, squabbling stepbrothers: one is a dauntless, corrupt but sensible cop (Salman Khan) and the other is good-for-nothing, freewheeling dumbass (Arbaaz Khan). When the former comes in the way of a politician-cum-hoodlum (Sonu Sood) because of his come-what-may attitude, this bad guy gains the advantage of the brotherly acrimony and makes that feeble bro join his camp and puts him against the furious one. Baddie also gives their asthmatic mom an untimely death by forcing her to take final few painful gasps. As accidental intellect strikes the obtuse, he patches up with his dabangg(fearless) bro who, when knowing the truth, goes ballistic and crushing the villain’s bones, upsets his six-packs and brings his life to the disgustingly choky full-stop by his earth-shattering blows. During this journey, the super hero gets attracted by a sexy potter-girl (Sonakshi Sinha) and bluntly puts forth his intention of getting married to her. Somehow, she doesn’t mind being virtually forced by belligerent cop and okays for tying the knot! Wow. What else does he need? His audacity gets the boost that he always gets and does whatever pleases him and the movie ends after little over 2 hrs of funny dialogues, good soundtracks and different yet engaging action! Dabangg, if not great, a good fun, indeed.

Elaborate:

An aggressive cop from UP called Chulbul Pandey (Salman Khan) who strongly believes in his quirky way of taking wrongdoers to task; in return robs the robbers’ money as a deserving-incentive and occasionally passing a part of it on to the needy – considering this an angelic and proud act, he calls himself Robinhood Pandey. He has no scarcity of yes-men around him, always ready to dance to his tunes but Pandeyji prefers dancing to the tunes of the ring tone of a cell phone even when he’s immersed in fighting.

Actually, this weird character is not entirely his own fault as he was brought up in a miserable condition. Flashback says that his father died when he was a kid; his mom re-married and brought a new dad for him but they didn’t get along ever since they encountered with each other. His mom then gave birth to a Mandbuddhi (dumb) kid named Makkhi (Arbaaz Khan) who was really low in courage and lacked smartness since his birth. This stepbrother was like an added fuel to the fire for Chulbul. So, since his childhood Chulbul keeps on fighting with his helplessness and his stepfather’s biased behavior to his idiot kid. He grows up kicking his half-brother’s ass whenever he feels like and glaring at his stepdad. The only reason for him having to stay with and putting up with them is his mom. So, all put together makes him a funny freak.

Once, Chulbul bumps into the only beauty-among-the-jerks named Rajo (Sonakshi Sinha) while one of his rooftop-changing jumps. She is a daughter of a drunkard who, believe me, is a real burden for her. She prefers not to get married until drunkard dad dies and makes this clear to Chulbul without giving any indication that she’d get married to him. Chulbul then tries to win the heart of her dad while filling his glasses with booze and promising to keep his baby safe with him after marrying her. Then, the expected happens. After this exercise, the tosspot chooses to drown himself and makes way clear for his charming daughter’s marriage. He must have thought that he can do little good for her only by dying and reducing her unfortunate-fatherly-pressure. Nonetheless, if this is the case, he was not wrong at all. Whatever the case may be, Chulbul is on seventh heaven now. Look at his audacity that he has the balls to rush to the Rajo’s house the very next day her dad pops off; he makes all silent weepers stop weeping and turns bereavement into bidaai of Rajo by ordering her to get ready to leave her messy house forever. And, to everyone’s surprise, even Rajo finds it cool to be bullied by weird but alluring cop. So, lucky Chulbul finally gets the babe, far better than his mom might have prayed for him and well before he had dreamt.

Now, an ideal bollywood movie should have at least one bugging bum. Here, this responsibility is handled by toughie Cheddi Singh (Sonu Sood), the local politico. He doesn’t like anybody crossing his path and challenging his power. But freak is the one who, when strictly warned not to do something, he’d do the same on priority and make a mockery of an arrogant. Chulbul is an apt example of that. He enjoys himself giving the rivals shit and taking the piss out of them. Even Cheddi was mocked many times by Chulbul, especially when Chulbul threatens him to make him confuse between breathing-hole and farting-hole, Cheddy’s face resembles any dying duck in a thunderstorm!

Facing Chulbul’s huffy behaviour, Cheddi makes a plan: burning Chulbul’s house so smartly that his stepfamily becomes suspicious of Chulbul. The trick becomes success. Having known the bad news of the house-burning, his stepdad gets an attack and gets hospitalized. Idiot stepbro Makkhi walks into the trap laid by Cheddi and does whatever damn he orders without applying his little brain as Cheddi is a monetary help for his bed-ridden dad. Cheddi easily persuades Makkhi to kill his bro and at one time Makkhi agrees too. That’s why probably even his dad calls him Mandbuddhi ! Nonetheless, a dumb doesn’t have an intellect but always has feelings. When Makkhi comes to know that it was Cheddi who killed his asthmatic mom by snatching her inhaler and making her choke; also burnt his home, made him split with Chulbul and made his dad miserable, he then joins hands with big bro Chulbul who is a bulbul by his heart (as described by one of his bootlickers in the movie) promptly forgives him.

Then what? No body can stop Chulbul. He is out of control. He blows a fuse and turns into the Hulk. Now look at the intensity of his burning anger – his muscles start inflating to a level that it tears off his shirt in no time! Without unbuttoning! Without villain’s pawns rushing to him and messes with his shirt! How come? – A real jaw-dropping scene, quickly followed by laughter! Then, one must assume the pitiable death of Cheddi. But very few may have noticed that Chulbul at least makes him breathe through the different hole (mouth) while killing him.

Okay, cool…so? Why so much hoopla about the movie?

So, there’s no groundbreaking reality or mind-bending concept as such. Sonakshi makes a mark as a confident debutant. She looks ravishing while acting as a spunky babe and I like her especially when she gives gracious glares. Insignificantly soppy roles are given to Dimple Kapadia and Vinod Khanna. She is a common mom and he is her second husband, Chulbul’s stepdad. Forget all, I would say. There’s only one show-stealer: Chulbul aka Robinhood Pandey. He emerges as a true super hero. So what if he doesn’t prefer wearing his underwear over his pants like Superman does, he has developed his own decent style statement: he differentiates himself by setting his Ray Ban shades at the back of his collar-top!; so what if he can’t throw strings out from his wrist like Spiderman does for crossing skyscrappers'-terraces, but you won’t believe, he doesn’t need strings to make sure of his act. He jumps from one rooftop to the other without any support, with such elegance and ease. His Matrix-backbends puzzle the team of gangsters. He has a ball every time he thrashes people with sheer grace! He is a rare, moody bird. If anybody even tries to ruffle his feathers, he flies off the handle and then only god or some funny ringtone can stop him. When Chulbul fights, your popcorn-eating or samosa/nachos-biting speed increases; on the contrary, track Munni badnaam hui makes you forget your popcorn while all your senses are riveted to the swaying beauty.

It’s a pleasant rollercoaster ride with well-blended elements of great action, foot-tapping music and zany humour. Go, treat yourself with a pure, mindless fun-fiesta. It’s undoubtedly a one-man-show!