Dishoom Movie Review: Dishoom Dishoom, Puff Pufff Pant Pant!

He doesn’t.

Though I found Dhishoom to be way too formulistic  to make as strong an impression as Rohit’s directorial debut film Desi Boyz , there is virtue in vice. Dhishoom proves it.Everyone in the plot including  the heroine who plays a thief(this is as close as Jacqueline Fernandez will ever get to scenestealing) breaks the law in a country far away from home.

Let’s say it out straight. Dubai never gleamed so invitingly. Cinematographer Ayananka Bose shoots the city with fastidious flair, capturing the tall buildings in postures of imposing intimacy. The characters are luckily not dwarfed by the energetic  chase sequences that clutter  the second-half as though Dubai served as host to a hectic game of drones….

The irrelevant half, I might add, as half the time

Akshaye doesn’t have  too many scenes to chew on. But when he does get to open his mouth he makes you listen . Akshay Kumar has a  scenestealingcameo as a gay baddie. His look and his pout and the glint in his eye when he asks John and Varun to strip add  a mischievous spark to the otherwise surpriseless proceedings,bolstered by  a sense of boyish fun that the two protagonists bring to the plot .

Saqib Saleem plays a Virat Kohli double named Viraj who won’t succumb to forcible bribery won’t sell off his nation even if it means deathand won’t ogle at Nargis Fakhri even if she offers her lips and other assets on a platter.

“If we respect the namaaz, God will look after us,” declares Varun with surprising piety.  I am sure I heard  holy  chants in the background. But the best incidental character in the fidgety plot is Satish Kaushik who plays a marriage-selling voice on Varun’s phone. We  never see him , just as we never saw Bharati Achrekar in The Lunchbox.

The best line in the film goes to Ms Fernandez who tells John, “You’ve just come out of your testicular cancer, now stop smoking.”

Here I could see John looking wistful. Missing the brother who will  move on to his next project.