Movie Review: Dabanngg



Chulbul Pandey has always been neglected by his stepfather Prajapathi Pandey(Vinod Khanna). Prajapathi dotes on his son Makhanchan. Naini(Dimple Kapadia), Chulbul’s and Makhanchan’s mother, justifies Prajapathi’s actions. Makhanchan is not so bright and hence Prajapathi is concerned about him. Years later, Chulbul(Salman Khan) becomes a cop while Makhanchan(Arbaaz Khan) assists his dad in running their factory.

Chulbul is an unconventional cop. He raids the robbers, recovers the money, keeps a major portion with him and shares the rest with fellow cops. During such a raid, he bashes up the henchmen of Cheddi Singh(Sonu Sood), who is the leader of the youth wing of a major political party of the ruling home minister(Anupam Kher). Chulbul and Cheddi cross swords.

Chulbul meets Rajo(Sonakshi Sinha) while chasing goons. He is smitten by her and follows her everywhere with an intention of marrying her. Meanwhile Makanchan loves Nirmala(Mahie Gill). But, her father(Tinnu Anand) disagrees their union as Prajapathi wants dowry. How Chulbul comes to terms with his stepfather and also vanquishes Cheddi forms the rest of the story.

Abhinav Singh Kashyap debuts as a director with this film based on a script co-written by him. Although the intention is to deliver a masala entertainer with a new age look and feel, the director fails to do so; but not because he is not competent. The primary reason is miscasting and the secondary reason the script. The script is interesting at places. But overall, the viewer’s interest waxes and wanes. After Chulbul meets Rajo, there are songs in quick succession which stalls the story. During the second half, the drama picks up. There are ample scenes to showcase Chulbul whereas the villain is neglected. Because of the above flaws, Anubhav’s strong points of the movie do not get the right attention. The strong points are the background score by Sandeep Shirodkar and fights by Vijayan. Sandeep Shirodkar’s music is reminiscent of Desperado. It suits the rustic locations and the macho characters. The initial actions scenes in the movie is what can be seen in Tamil or Telugu movies. But the final action between Chulbul and Cheddi is good. Both of them are hitting each other hard and quickly. Then, they go shirtless.

Salman Khan botches Chulbul Pandey. He is good in action scenes. But on the flip side, he is not able to successfully portray the dual faced Chulbul effectively. He mumbles the dialogues taking all the fun out of the one liners. Arbaaz Khan fails miserably as Makhanchan. Makhanchan is naive and can easily fall prey to schemers. But, Arbaaz’s Makhanchan is not naive but wooden. Sonakshi Sinha debuts as an actress and she has nothing to feel proud in this movie. Sonu Sood’s Cheddi Singh would have turned out to be a better villain if more screen time was devoted for him. All the other supporting cast are wasted.

Stay away! If you are an action fan, wait for a few days and the action scenes may appear on youtube.

Language: Hindi

Genre: Action

Rating: *

Picture Courtesy: Bollywood Hungama

Tags: Movies,Salman Khan,Arbaaz Khan,Sonakshi Sinha,Sonu Sood,Abhinav Singh Kashyap,Action

Comments

  1. Is it a macho movie? I hate Salman anyway. I am staying away.

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  2. a brilliantly nonsensical film...treat for people who love trashy bollywood films...am one of them! I guess we all love them...but are snobbish enough not to admit it in public!

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  3. With the kind of hype which has been created, one time see seems a must

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  4. @Aparna - Not your type of movie.

    @A Legend Returns - Thanks for visiting the site.
    Glad to hear that you enjoyed the movie! Unfortunately, I did not. It was primarily because of terrible acting by Salman. I had seen the Telugu and Tamil versions of "Wanted" and loved it. But when it came to Hindi, it was Thumbs down! I do enjoy nonsensical masala movies.

    @BKC - Lack of movies during Eid! This is the only option. :(

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  5. 'Dabangg' was nothing more than a contrived piece of wasteful cinema that showed us stuff we've been seeing in Rajnikanth movies for decades now. Since Bollywood now is shockingly out of new stories, it now reproduces old cliches in an MTV format and calls it 'cool'.Add Salman to the equation - a man who gave up on his non-existent career years ago - and you have 'Dabangg'. Whats worse is people are watching meaningless stuff like this and enjoying it!THAT - is the real cause for concern. Being whimsical in a smart way is one thing,but trying to be cool by keeping names like 'Chulbul Pandey' and mouthing carefully rehearsed and non-conviction based lines to get the audience to howl is plain asinine.

    Cheers

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  6. Wow Nona..you dodged a bullet by not watching this movie.. :D

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  7. You saw the movie already? Would anyway not have seen it at a theatre. Might not, even on TV, after this review.

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  8. Before itself I knew it is not worth. Now a days we have rarely any good movies. People seem to have all originality, they come up with movies like remake of Step mom, which itself was not watchable.
    I really miss the old Hindi movies with their songs which are still so popular.

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  9. @Shak - Thank you for dropping by. I agree with you about this being a bad movie. This would have been an enjoyable fare if Salman had put some energy on it! The movie was supposed to a take on the successful formula of the 70's. There are howlarious oneliners which get defused when Salman mouths it!

    @Nandu - Thank you dropping by. I have been hit by the bullet. But, please try to stay away from this. :)

    @Radha - You will not have missed a thing by doing so.

    @Rama - There are good movies even now, Peepli Live, Udaan etc. If you are nostalgic, then better to wait for Farah Khan's movies. They are reminiscent of the old Bollywood.

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  10. Nice 'Masala' movie I hear ...one meant for the front row whistling classes (some call it Chavanni class)....would like to see it though (with brains safely tucked in my pocket).

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