Dishoom: Bollywood Masala All the Way

Cinema does take a lot of liberties with real time events but that's how it should be.After all both are interlinked and interdependent and draw inspiration from each other.

The film begins with a bang when a top cricketer of the indian cricket team (Viraj Sharma sounds like you know who) goes missing days before an India Pakistan match.

And who do we see taking the lead to resolve the crisis.Not the Home Minister not the Defence Minister but the Indian Foreign Minister dressed a la Sushma Swaraj, who tells the cops whether it is Viraj Sharma or the Twelfth man who has been kidnapped every Indian has to be rescued.

That brings a specialist cop Kabir(John Abraham) into action who is flown to UAE on a rescue mission.And to assist him he is provided a bumbling,fumbling,flirting Junaid (Varun Dhawan), a familiar plot.

If all this looks familiar wait- it's a full masala action thriller.The kidnapper sends a video to the Indian government showing a blindfolded victim (supposedly Viraj Sharma) tied to a chair while the kidnapper gives out his demands or else...

If that was not enough the film-makers add the match fixing angle,promising crores to the best batsman of the Indian team,which of course he refuses proudly.

The only element missing in this familiar plot is the female angle.And so we have Jacqueline Fernandez making a breezy entry, although quite late in the proceedings, to add spice as a small time pick-pocket who can steal purses as easily as mobiles.

But these ingredients do not tell the real impact the film makes.The film directed by Rohit Dhawan has a real racy edge of the seat story, again by Rohit Dhawan that keeps the adrenaline flowing except the last few sequences shot in some unidentified country showing sets straight out of an Arabian Nights movie which drags the movie.

What makes this film different are its dialogues written by Hussain Dalal that touch on contemporary issues.There are references to Modi thrown in between but the best part is the touch of humour that enlivens the film.

For instance, the investigators try to zoom in on the location of the video clip of the terrorist by listening to its recording. They listen carefully and then realise that there is a splatter of rain in the background. On the basis of maps of the country they are able to zoom in on the regions where it has rained recently in the small country.

Junaid is so excited by this discovery that he says" if this method was available to farmers in Lagaan they would not be looking at the heavens for rains."

To which John Abraham replies laconically, "if those farmers had money to buy I-pads they would not be paying Lagaan".

It is such humour that keeps the film going despite the long drawn out sequences featuring Akshay Khanna looking as dapper as ever as a villain even after a long lay off.

The scene stealer in this action thriller is of course Varun Dhawan who is fast turning out to be a challenge to established stars.John Abraham carries his no nonsense role of the top-cop a bit too far so that he refuses to smile even when not on duty.His already shrinking base of fans will have nothing to carry home after watching his act.

The directors of the film are also guilty of denying the viewers a more meaty role to the sizzling Jacqueline Fernandez, the beauty from Sri Lanka who has more female fan following than males as of today.She definitely has the potential of becoming the next Katrina Kaif of Bollywood.