Review: Dum Maaro Dum

Rohan Sippy's Dum Maaro Dum may have been in the news for the wrong reasons, but the Abhishek Bachchan-starrer amassed Rs.6.2 crore in India on its opening day itself.

Reviewed by Deccan Chronicle

Sippy has adequate skills to turn Goa into the new Nepal — land of drugs, foreigners, paedophiles, casual sex and murders — and he even organised sufficiently crass dialogue and a couple of interesting scenes. But his war on drugs and drug-wallas is non-committal.

Bipasha Basu looks very toned and nice, but the quality of men she has to loll in bed with is steadily deteriorating. Prateik Babar is a big letdown, as is Rana Daggubati.

Govind Namdeo is his usual self and gets to shout his favourite word — ghanta. Aditya Pancholi, who plays Lorsa, is infinitely creepier in his pictures in glossies. Gantois Gomes is good.

Abhishek Bachchan’s ACP Kamath, I read somewhere, is being “equated with Inspector Vijay” of Zanjeer. Which raving lunatic is making this comparison? If Inspector Vijay were to find ACP Kamath in his thana, he would kick his chair, grit his teeth and caution, “Jab tak baithne ko na kaha jai sharafat se khade raho. Yeh police station hai, tumhare baap ka ghar nahin”.

Reviewed by Rediff

Harry Callahan never broke into song. There are things truly tough men do and things they would only grimace at, and Dirty Harry, minutes after asking punks if they felt fortunate, never quite felt the need to explode into rap. To be fair, though, the fact that Abhishek Bachchan's ruthless cop in Rohan Sippy's Dum Maaro Dum inexplicably needs to do a bad Baba Sehgal impersonation isn't the only thing that makes us take his character less seriously.

Abhishek Bachchan, more restrained than he has been in a while, is straitjacketed with a disappointingly one-note character, and seems to believe scowling is all it takes to be hard as nails. It must also here be said that watching Bachchan take down goons by the dozen is distressingly unconvincing, unlike his legendary father who is referenced, rather unnecessarily, a few too many times in this script — a song from Don is maimed, while a line from Deewar is used rather slyly — but the end result is a comparison nobody wants.

Sippy obviously knows his flash, but after a point there needs to be more. Dum Maaro Dum is a very watchable film, but squanders tremendous potential in a puff of white smoke. As can be said the morning after a party with too much cocaine, all that eventually remains are a couple of good lines.