Dabangg Movie Review - India Today

By Kaveree Bamzai


So Salman Khan's pelvis is more expressive than his face. His lip sync is distinctly dodgy. His dramatic scenes always border a bit on bathos. And he could always do with a few extra inches. But is there a movie that has tapped into his charisma as well as Dabangg? No. And no again. Abhinav Singh Kashyap writes a character Salman (with this star, like the other two Khans, you have to use the first name familiar) was born to be. Chulbul Pandey is a heartland hipster whose two fingers-on-moustache, Ray Bans on the back collar ("taki mujhe aage aur peeche ka dikhe") and two hands on the belt. He has a way with words ("pyaar se lo ya thappad se," he tells the woman he has decided to make his wife) and with criminals ("Cheddi Singh, hum tumhare main itne chhed karenge ki confuse ho jayoge ki saans kahan se le aur p---- kahan se"). He also has a back story: a tortured childhood with his father dying when he was young and his mother (a robust Dimple Kapadia) marrying a greedy Vinod Khanna, who gives him his name, Pandeyji.

This is the same territory as Omkara, Uttar Pradesh Central, where haramzada and kaminey are terms of endearment and where women are not asked what they want, just told what they need (which can vary from a slap to a you-know-what). Robinhood Pandey is the inspector of Lal Gunj who has emerged as a thorn in the flesh of the local goon Chhedi Singh (played by a very rustic chic Sonu Sood). Chhedi Singh himself has emerged as a crimp in the badshahiyat of local political Dayal Babu (Anupam Kher, who looks suspsiciously like LK Advani in this). There's also Rajo, the luscious beauty Sonakshi Sinha, who turns out to be not such a good girl after all, and who is the daughter of the village drunk, Mahesh Manjrekar.

There's also Arbaaz Khan who as producer clearly decided to give himself a role since few others do. He's cast as Makhanchan or Makhi, Chulbul's dimwitted younger stepbrother who covets his money to marry his longtime girlfriend, Nirmala, played by DevD's Mahi Gill. Think Omakara's stylised UP badlands meets Wanted's raw masala action meets DevD's tortured family politics and Dabangg is a movie that makes no bones about being what it is. Meant to entertain. So even as fingers get twisted, legs are broken, bombs go off and guns fire in aerial shots, it's as if Salman is telling the audience: go on, enjoy yourself, have a laugh. It's all a game. As he tells his officers when trying to catch a local goon, "mote log us taraf, patle log us taraf, fit log mere saath". No one follows him. And he says, "kya hoga police ka". Indeed, there is a wonderful lightness of being Dabangg, despite raking up realpolitik, corruption in the police, and the hopeless nature of small town India, where men turn to crime because there is nothing left to do outside exercising in the local akhara.

That's Abhinav Kashyap's contribution to a film that could have easily just remained a competent actioner. Instead he takes it a notch higher, making Chulbul a character worth remembering, who wears dark glasses because he wants to hide the fact that his eyes occasionally well up with tears and who almost pukes before calling his much hated stepfather "papa". There's a freshness in the idiom which comes from an utter lack of self consciousness. This is not Deepika Padukone and Neil Nitin Mukesh trying to be Marathi chawl kids. This is the real stuff, or as real as Salman can make his acting--it's as if he is winking at the audience all along, saying catch me if you can.

Indeed, I've always felt that the Salman of Dus ka Dum and TV interviews needed to be bottled and sold. Dabangg does just that. He's alternately laconic and charming, brutal and bratty, but always with a smile. He's Bollywood's Rajinikanth and I suspect his career will continue almost as long. Perhaps he can stop weaving his hair?

And yes girls, in case you think there's too much of the dishum dishum happening, there's also the money shot. Salman's shirt tears under the weight of his bursting muscles and rips itself off his chest--yes, a little pudgier than it's been, but hey, the man is 45, or is it 46.

Chulbul Pandey, says Salman, "yeh naam hame shobha deta hain." Yes, Pandeyji, even the movie does you proud.

Well edited, with songs strategically placed throughout the movie, including the rousing Munni badnaam hui, and a length that's not too terrifying. This is one Zandu Balm of a movie.