Review: Movie - Dum Maaro Dum

 Honestly I didn’t have too high hopes from Dum Maaro Dum. After all how creative can the makers of a film get whose title track uses music from an old hit and churns out such gibberish lyrics as “Unche se uncha banda, potty pe baithe nanga” or “aaj chair khich raha hai, kal meri skirt khichega”. But still since my wife is an Abhishek fan and I did actually like Rohan Sippy’s earlier attempt - “Bluffmaster”, we went for the movie.

Plot/Cast: 

As the title and the promos suggest the movie is about drugs and the mafia and of course by this time you all know about Goa. Goa is a character by itself in the movie. And if you’ve been to Goa before you’ll feel an instant connect.  Abhishek plays a cop who’s determined to free Goa of the drugs.  Bips is an air hostess who is into smuggling. Rana is the man with guitar-laidback, susegad. Prateik Babbar is a teen who gets entangled in the drug business. Aditya Pancholi is the drug lord – pretty much the usual ensemble of characters of films of this genre.

Performances: 

Abhishek packs a punch in his performance. He looks good after a long time maybe the best after “Guru”. He shows given a good script and a decent director he can do wonders. I hope he gets better at choosing roles and the right scripts for him because the talent is there.  Prateik is at his natural best. He gets another role as an innocent teenager after “Mumbai Diaries” and he looks his character. Bips and Rana are average. Rana specifically I thought was wasted because he has good screen presence which I felt was under-utilized. Govind Namdeo does nothing new – we’ve seen him in similar roles hundreds of times. Aditya Pancholi is OK – I had expected something better like what he did in “Striker”. The surprise package is Muzammil S. Qureshi as Mercy who makes the best of whatever little role that he had. It would be good to see him getting some bigger and meatier roles.

Screenplay/Dialogs: 

The treatment is different and stylish and that is what is what probably keeps you glued to the screen otherwise I felt I have seen/heard/known the story before. The story is sort of chaptered where each character is introduced and takes the story a little further.  It’s probably the dialogs that make the difference especially Abhishek’s. The climax seemed sort of an after thought to give Rana’s character some leverage. Suspense is good but again as I said I felt as if I had seen all that before.

Music/Songs: 

Pritam is the music director and the lyrics are by Jaideep Sahni . The soundtrack is pretty ordinary. You might feel good hearing the songs for the first time but will get bored very soon, there is no longevity. You like it in the movie but gets wiped out of your memory as soon as you get out of the theatre. You all know about ‘Dum Maaro Dum’ but there are two other sings that need mention. First is ‘Na aaye ho Na aaoge’ sung by Papon (a mix of Atif Aslam and Mohit Chauhan) is a beautiful song. Second is the impressive and enjoyable rap ‘Thayn Thayn’ by AB himself, listen it with the video, you’ll know what I mean :)

Verdict: 

It’s a good watch although the emotion quotient is missing. You see the characters on screen but you neither feel their joy nor their pain but still do watch it for Abhishek. 3/5