Saturday, December 22, 2012
Dabangg 2
Short And Painless
The craze for Salman Khan has been fuelled to such an extent that he
could sit in a chair silently in a film and people would still flock for first
weekend tickets. To be fair, Arbaaz Khan, picking up the Dabangg
franchise (it will be turn into a Chulbul Pandey franchise) from Abhinav
Kashyap knows what the audience wants from Salman Khan and lays it out on a
silver platter. Salman treats with the irreverence it deserves—in
the title song sequence, the belt buckle dances by itself (aping the popular
dance move from Dabangg), and the aviator glasses stay hooked
to the back of the collar.
It’s such a collection of Chulbul Pandey ‘items’ that the plot is
rudimentary—here’s a brave cop, here’s a villain terrorising a city, and they
have to clash. Director Khan and writer Dilip Shukla make this
inevitable journey quick and painless; punctuate with humour, songs and piquant
‘shudh’ Hindi dialogue; pity that there’s no quotable line, except a brisk
“Aate Hain” whenever Pandey exits the scene, though this term is not used in
Kanpur where the film is set.
The small town and recreated rather well, never mind the blatant product
placements, and the characters are pure UP. The villain, Bachcha
Singh (Prakash Raj) doesn’t quite get the Kanpur lilt in his speech, and is not
as fearsome an antagonist a Salman/Chulbul needed. What is lacking
in the villain department is made up by Chulbul’s little scenes of warmth
shared with the family—wife Rajjo (Sonakshi Sinha), stepdad Prajapati (Vinod
Khanna) and half brother Makkhan (Arbaaz Khan) and colleages, the gluttonous
boss (Manoj Pahwa) and supportive colleagues. If it weren’t for the truly cheap
item number (Kareena Kapoor’s Fevicol), in which the otherwise
devoted-to-wife Chulbul goes carousing in the red light area, he would be an
almost
unimpeachable man.
Dabangg 2 has no soaring highs, but it delivers its entertainment in
small, self-releasing doses and Salman Khan does it all—giggling, weeping
(yes!), taunting, fighting-- with crowd-pleasing enthusiasm. So why shouldn't
the crowds be pleased?
Labels: Cinemaah
