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Fast bikes, hot babes, cool guys and good music. That pretty much sums up Sanjay Gadhvi's Dhoom. Despite the Fast & Furious comparisons, I thought this movie was pretty good. I think I read somewhere that this was one of the first real attempts at making a true full throttle action flick in Bollywood and I think that they were successful. It is sleek and has thrills galore, however (as with his follow up) Gadhvi's film is full of style but little substance. This could be the reason why the chase scenes are far more interesting than the actual story. (spoiler) My biggest pet peeve of this film is the execution of the so-called "finale heist" - a robbery conducted at a posh hotel worth $180 million that is stolen by simply cutting a hole through the floor of their hotel room that was conveniently located directly above the hotel's bank vault and carried out in luggage that was picked up in the same room by the bellhop. (end spoiler)




So let's talk about the cast. I liked Jai, the no-nonsense brooding cop who's determined to catch notorious bike thieves at any cost. I thought, if anything, I liked seeing him in this actiony type role (even if the climactic fight with his "evil" foe is reminisce of The Matrix and therefore slightly unrealistic as our hero hasn't taken any pills!) However, in this film, as opposed to it's successor, Abhiskek's role is a little meatier. He gets to be a little sexy, a whole lot of serious with a small pinch of humour thrown in there towards the end, and that works for me.


I believe John Abraham won a filmfare award for this movie for best villain. I'm not sure why. I know the man has got some body on him (and believe me I can appreciate that plus I did really like him in Dostana), but his character in this film feels incomplete to me. There's no background story on him so we don't know why he's a thief, but I guess one can assume it's simply for the thrill factor? He was not menacing at all, but I suppose his was supposed to be a "smart" villain (though I didn't necessarily see any grand scheme in any of his heists either). So John left me feeling a little flat to say the least, plus I wanted desperately to cut his hair.




Oh Uday, where would Bollywood be without your under appreciated comedy, your over-muscley arms and cartoonish expressions? I got pretty good laughs from his inability to score in the lady department even if I didn't necessarily buy him as a rough bike racing kind of guy. Plus if one can credit Johnny Lever as being a great comedian, why not Uday? And, last but not least, thank you Esha Deol and Rimi Sen for heating up the film and providing some fantastic dance moves to emulate. It's hard being a girl in an adrenaline pumping boy's film!




Last but not least, I loved the music in this film. Whether it's original or not, Pritam has created one catchy soundtrack - I dare anyone to listen to Dhoom Machale and not be singing it for days or weeks to come. Plus if anyone can tell me if "shikdum" means what I think it means....



So, a fairly enjoyable film if you don't go digging too deep. I think, however, that I liked Dhoom 2 better if not simply for Hrithik's smarter sexier thief and the Aish/Hrithik jodi (of which there was simply nothing to compare to in this one).