Continuing from yesterday’s musings on muscles and mindless fun in the movies, with…
Julie M: Dhoom 3 (2013)…wherein my eyeballs were drawn to Aamir and I was thoroughly bored with any scene in which he did not appear.
Plot summary: Our top-cop “heroes” from Dhoom and Dhoom 2, ACP Jai Dixit (Abhishek Bachchan) and his silly sidekick Ali (Uday Chopra) have been called to Chicago to help investigate a string of bank robberies at which inscriptions in Hindi have been found along with a clown mask. They very quickly figure out who the robber is but they can’t understand how he does it and cannot manage to catch him. Meanwhile, we learn the backstory of the robber: he is Sahir Khan (Aamir Khan), who had grown up in his father’s (Jackie Shroff) Great Indian Circus in Chicago, but experienced personal tragedy when the circus was forced to close down for lack of funds, a situation exacerbated by the refusal of the Western Bank of Chicago to lend them any more money. His plan involves robbing branches of that very bank to gain the funds to resurrect the Great Indian Circus and avenge his father’s ideas. Aliyah (Katrina Kaif) is the dancer/heroine who is important to the success of the rebooted circus act. The action of the film involves Jai and Ali tracking, chasing and outwitting Sahir in an attempt to bring him to justice, with a stunning revelation just before the interval that leads the second half into a completely different direction. Take a look at the trailer.
Jenny K: I saw it with Pat on Christmas Day, and didn’t hate it! Imagine! And I was prepared to…after watching Dhoom (1), I figured that Dhoom 2 must have been some kind of fluke.
Julie M: Nyah, nyah, I saw it first! Not by choice…I made the error of going to see it on the Saturday before Christmas, in a major mall cinema (aka something to avoid), as part of a Meetup group that didn’t quite meet up. So I saw it alone.
Jenny K: Aw…it’s amazing how many Meetup.com meetings end up as solo events…sorry, though.
Julie M: Given the nature of the Dhoom films (of which I vastly preferred Dhoom 2) I didn’t expect much more than a bunch of action scenes, some scantily clad lasses a la Bipasha Basu in Dhoom 2, a star-of-the-moment slimmed to nothingness as the lead actress, a big hunky male star as the villain and a bad rap song. In some ways I was vindicated, but in other ways I was very much surprised…most of them having to do with Aamir.
Jenny K: I’d be interested to know how much of the change in tone of this outing from the last two films is because of AK’s influence, or because of the directorial switch. Sanjay Ghadvi did the first two in the series (ostensibly tied up, at the time, in a contract to TV 18 Television) and it was given over to Vijay Krishna Acharya who had done dialogue on the first two, but is less proven as a director.
Pat and I both thought that where Dhoom 2 was a much more “good old mindless eye-candy fun” film, D3 tried for more but didn’t reach it. Its plot was very thin, and what there was was a pilfered riff on Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige, which was a much more stylish movie. Aamir seems drawn to Nolan’s projects, doesn’t he? The Ghajini/Memento treatment springs to mind. And once again, the inflating of the backstory doesn’t help the Indian version to skim along, at least I don’t think so.
Julie M: I enjoyed the backstory much more than the front story. Chicago was an unusual location for Bollywood to select, and it looked stunning in both the flashbacks and current timeline. I found Jai and Ali dull to the extreme, not to mention the yawning plot holes about how they came to be called in and how they instantly figure out it’s Sahir who’s the villain. And the ever-present motorcycles…gag me. Although I did like when Sahir’s motorcycle turned into a jet ski.
Jenny K: Well, that stunt was right out of Jai’s first entrance in Dhoom 2, at least the shooting up from under the water part of it. I found that bit really old hat.
The “yeah right” factor in the film, overall, is pretty high. Right up there with the “why bother” factor. Children aging twenty-plus years, while bankers don’t, at all. Adults holding personal grudges against impersonal institutions, in ways that don’t make sense. As you said, too many indistinguishable motorcycle chases for my taste. Why were Abhi and Uday even there? They didn’t do much good until the end, and then they didn’t foresee the literal cliff-hanger, and given the D2 end, you’d think it would be the first place his mind would go.
Julie M: And they looked ridiculous in the opener, which was supposed to establish them as heroes. Abhi and Uday more or less sleepwalked through their parts, to my mind.
Jenny K: Aamir did a very nice job in his acting, as always…turning what could have been a cliché into a tour de force with the skills he displays. [spoiler] You almost never have a problem knowing which brother you’re looking at. Everything changes in his body language, his voice timbre, etc. to give us two completely different people. Not an easy thing to do. Has he done that before? I can’t remember, and I’ve seen most of his stuff. Better question, how has he avoided doing a twin flick this long?!? [end spoiler]
Julie M: I figured that there had to be something about this role that made him agree to do it…he’s not the typical hero or villain, which meant there was a serious side to the entire story where he could do some real acting. And we got it in spades in the 2nd half…I totally agree with all your observations and was mesmerized by what he was doing.
I also like that he got to dance and be physical, which is not something he usually does these days. The scene at the beginning where he is buffed and waxed and wearing nothing but a derby hat, in this big empty apartment overlooking the great view of Chicago…what an entrance! You knew he was not going to be the typical villain (although I did wonder where that apartment went, because we never saw it again through the whole movie).
Jenny K: I also liked his musical and magic numbers, full-out, old-school
production numbers like this one.
You can see how hard he works to get just the right effect. He’s in great physical condition, pumped up to compete with the Salmans of his field, but thankfully, not so washboard-ab-like that he looked like a walking tank. His physique seemed appropriate for the acrobatic work his job entailed. He’s always been very graceful, and continues to show that here.
And though the chemistry with Katrina isn’t smouldering, as the Hrithik/Aishwarya version was, it worked where it was meant to. I don’t even find the height difference between Katrina and AK that much of an obstacle. Tribute to his personal sang-froid.
Julie M: Or lifts… Aamir’s tap dancing, while not technically accurate (yeah, they dubbed in the taps), definitely was energetic and he was committed to it. It’s like he knew he couldn’t beat Hrithik’s dancing and decided to just be himself.
Jenny K: Katrina’s skills weren’t really tested that much in this film. Her part is very small, and the numbers she does are good, but sort of easy thrills. She isn’t really there in the script other than that of “designated love interest”…even Jackie Shroff has a juicier role and he only does one real scene (even if it is done several times).
Julie M: Yeah, but she was the requisite skinny babe, and even I could tell that there was a reason for her heavily accented Hindi, being as she is supposed to be quite Indo-American in this film. I liked the ending, though…very female-empowerment, and really calls to mind some questions about her motivations throughout the film. Did she know? Was she manipulating? Or was it some sort of homage/tribute?
I also enjoyed the updating and “flip” of the by-now traditional “Dhoom Machale” number. In D2 it was Hrithik Roshan (the villain) in the opening credits, in D3 it was the girl (heroine-ish) in the closing credits.
Jenny K: So, overall, I’m not sorry I saw it, but wish they had gone a bit further to prop up the plot and be worthy of the painstaking work that Aamir put into it. Oh, and I hope he burns that derby, very soon. I find myself wanting River Song to make a visit with her six guns and fill the hat full of holes… “Derbies are cool, indeed…pow-pow-pow!” Sorry about the Doctor Who non-sequitur.
Julie M: It remains to be seen whether there will be a Dhoom 4, given the lukewarm (except for Aamir’s performance) critical response to D3. Pity, because Dhoom 2 really was a lot of fun.
Jenny K: Hmmm…I heard the box office reports, in India at least, were through the roof. Sounded like that well ain’t dry yet. Maybe GrandbabyB will do a cameo in the next one!
Five point someone: what not to do at IIT was Bhagat’s first book, published in 2004 when he was just 30 and after years of writing on the sly. Bhagat had attended IIT Delhi from 1991 to 1995 and majored in mechanical engineering, just like the three protagonists of FPS, Hari, Ryan and Alok. They meet on their first day at IIT and instantly bond. IIT (Indian Institutes of Technology—a national series of independent institutions, each specializing in specific curricula) is a pressure-cooker where grades are everything–they literally determine your future. The closer your grade point average is to a full 10 points, the more success you will find in life. Or so goes the common wisdom. Our anti-heroes find, to their horror, that after topping all their high school curricula and mugging (grinding) as much as is palatable, at IIT they can manage no better than a five-point-something. So they decide to roll with it, and proceed to have as good a time as possible in their college years without flunking out. Although there are some amusing incidents, overall things go from bad to worse as they cut classes, drink on the roof, pick up a girlfriend (Hari), ignore their homework in favor of a personal research project (Ryan) and prioritize their family’s happiness over their studies (Alok). They fight with each other and have repeated run-ins with their department head. Will the guys pull things out by graduation with their friendship intact? Or will their eagerness to have a good time ruin their lives forever?
which had the same basic premise—three slackers at IIT—but went far beyond it, turning it from a college-antics novel into a strong bromance with a rom-com thread and megawatt star power. Aamir Khan played the Ryan-analogue character, called Rancho, an unconventional thinker with surprising technical gifts. Kareena Kapoor played his out-of-reach love interest. Sharman Joshi and R. Madhavan also starred, with Boman Irani playing the nemesis-professor and a fun cameo by Javed Jaffrey. The book was not followed closely although certain key events in the novel did reach the screen more or less intact, and each 3 Idiots character seemed to have attributes of all three of the FPS protagonists as well as quite a few original aspects. Suffice it to say that one can safely read the book without spoiling the movie, and vice versa. For a point-by-point comparison, check out 
At this point I moved on to Bhagat’s second book, One Night @ the Call Center (2005). As can be expected from the title, the novel’s entire action takes place in the course of one night shift, and all the characters work in the same group at a call center in Gurgaon. All are in their early-to-mid 20s and each has unhappy aspects to his or her life, which they all feel they are powerless to change. Numerous flashbacks illuminate the backstory of the romantic relationship between two of the characters, and pop-culture references abound in the exposition during the first two-thirds of the novel. Amid all of this young-person rhona-dhona a “defining incident” happens, and the Voice of God (!!) comes to the characters, inspiring them to believe in themselves in order to change their fates. The last third of the book has them doing just that.
the film Hello* was released–before 3 Idiots, it should be noted–and Bhagat wrote the screenplay. Not surprisingly, the film follows the book almost exactly and even has the same 3 Idiots actor, Sharman Joshi, as the narrator/main character. I found Hello equally as boring as I found the novel, with low production values, comatose acting (with the exception of Sohail Khan as the volatile Vroom; Joshi’s valiant attempts at main character Shyam were obviously hampered by the inadequate script) and cheesy pseudo-philosophy. Obviously lots of people agreed with me, because it did terrible box office and was uniformly panned by critics who called attention to its weak script. Everyone learned something, particularly that writing a novel and writing a screenplay are two very different things. Maybe that’s why 3 Idiots was the bigger hit—Bhagat’s role was limited to script approval, which he gave wholeheartedly, and I think having that emotional remove allowed the professionals to do their job.
Jenny Ketcham
julialmoore
Filmi-Goris 
