As much as Rohit Dhawan’s action comedy is a buddy cop story centred on the blossoming bromance between rookie Junaid (Varun Dhawan) and glowering special task force agent Kabir (John Abraham), it’s also the tale of two Akshays, or rather one Akshay (Kumar) and one Akshaye (Khanna).
Somewhere in the Middle East, India’s star batsman Viraj (Saqib Saleem) goes missing days before a crucial India-Pakistan final, an early opening for the screenwriters (Rohit Dhawan, Tushar Hiranandani) to force in some jingoism.
The Indians send their ace investigator Kabir, who informs the local government that he plans to break all the rules in order to complete his task successfully (the one rule he consistently breaks is to mournfully smoke everywhere). Kabir picks Junaid as his local guide and driver. Junaid is only too eager to please and happy to match Kabir’s spray-on shirts and yellow briefs, swag for swag. Dhawan’s Junaid is overenthusiastic, as if compensating for Abraham’s stiff Kabir.
Their investigations into Viraj’s kidnapping take them to a fictitious border town. Tagging along is a petty, but pretty, thief Meera/Ishika (Jacqueline Fernandez), who is useful when it comes to distracting the bad guys with an item number. Viraj is trapped in the net of bookie Wagah (Akshaye Khanna) and as the cops close in on him, they find an unexpected ally in a Boxer named Bradman, and a camp party animal played with absolute relish by Akshay Kumar. His pouting selfie scene with Viraj is hilarious, and Khanna is in fine form as the villain.
Dishoom is garnished with cameos. Cricketers-commentators Mohinder Amarnath, Aakash Chopra and Rameez Raja, among others, appear during cricket matches, and there is a fun running gag with Satish Kaushik as a voice on the phone. If the climactic action scene looks familiar, think back to Mel Gibson’s skills with a dislocated shoulder in Lethal Weapon 2. There’s far more emphasis on style than script, but Dishoom won’t disappoint fans of the buff leading men.
Dishoom released in theatres on Friday.
