Amazing Bollywood - I

I travel to Pune atleast 3 to 4 times a month and always take the Volvo bus service. This gives me a chance to watch Hindi movies which I otherwise don’t. I have been surprised by a few movies but most of the time the movies reaffirm that my conviction of most Bollywood movies being in a decrepit stat of affairs.

Now is the right moment for me to mention the multi–starrer Dus in this post. I am not going go on a scene by scene autopsy; talking about the climax will be fun enough. For those who have not seen the movie, here’s the gist of it – Abhishek Bachchan is flying a plane loaded with explosives that can blow up an entire town; Esha Deol is sitting beside him with a I–will–die–for–my–love–if–I–have–to look on her face (at least this is what I guess she was struggling to portray while the pained look of someone suffering from acute constipation was what we got to see).

Abhishek is a member of the Indian version of a mix of CIA & FBI (as in, they work pretty much like FBI but their duties and responsibilities are pretty much close to what CIA does) and Esha is a member of the terrorist group who turns coat at the last moment for the sake of her love. They have just decided to take the plane beyond the city limits, cause if the timed explosives burst within the city limits, thousands of people will die. Now, on the other side of the town, Sanjay Dutt (who is playing the top boss of that FBI–CIA combo and also Abhishek’s elder brother) is almost about to nab the master mind behind the terrorist act that they have just foiled. In other parts of the town Sunil Shetty and Zayed Khan are also doing similar acts of bravery and saving this world from terrorists. All these people are at all the times connected to each other by some miracle of modern communication.

Now the clincher – the plane Abhishek is trying to take out of the town is running out of fuel and Abhishek has two choices in front of him – he can either dive into the lake with the plane ( thus kill himself but at the same time save thousands of innocent lives) or he can eject himself and let the plane fall wherever it manages to fall. Dear Abhishek is unable to make the choice. So he asks his elder brother – correction – his boss to give him order to dive into the lake. The boss – correction – elder brother feigns being under immense duress. In an example of the hammiest of all ham scenes – Sanjay Dutt is rolling on the floor of the lobby, screaming and kicking, quite unable to utter even a single word (while the terrorist manages to run away). Sunil Shetty & Zayed Khan, who are always tuned in to the action somehow, start screaming their throats hoarse, asking Abhishek to dump the stupid plane and jump off. They also address the almost–paralytic Sanjay Dutt and ask him to command Abhishek to jump off of the bloody plane. Abhishek continues demanding that his boss should give him the go–ahead.

This drama ensues for quite a few minutes (it sure felt like it went on for hours and hours) and in the end Sanjay Dutt does this world a favor by allowing his younger brother to dive into the lake with the plane.

I am amazed the writers thought there was a conflict there. Hello? When the choice is death of thousands of people vs. a soldier and his moll, I think only a dumbo will write up the entire climax based on that dilemma. And as if this was not stupid enough, two of the soldiers are egging for the third soldier to dump the plane on top of the city and save his life. Amazing Bollywood.