Dishoom

About the film

Dishoom (transl. Bang) is a 2016 Indian Hindi-language buddy cop action comedy film directed by Rohit Dhawan and produced by Sajid Nadiadwala. It stars John Abraham, Varun Dhawan, Jacqueline Fernandez, Saqib Saleem and Akshaye Khanna, while Parineeti Chopra, Akshay Kumar and Nargis Fakhri make special appearances in the film. The film revolves around two cops tasked with rescuing a kidnapped Indian cricketer from a cricket bookie.

Dishoom was released theatrically worldwide on 29 July 2016 to mixed-to-positive reviews from critics and became a moderately successful venture at the box office, earning ₹119 crore worldwide.

Plot

During a cricket tournament in the Middle East, 48 hours prior to the final match between India and Pakistan, India's top cricketer Viraj Sharma goes missing. Indian authorities get a video tape of an unknown man wearing a Pakistani team jersey and claiming to have abducted Viraj till the India vs Pakistan cricket match two days later and warning them not to cancel the match or else Viraj will be killed. Attempting to avoid media outrage, Gayatri Shubha Mishra, the External Affairs Minister of India, sends special task force officer Kabir Shergill IPS to U.A.E for a 36-hour manhunt. After being received by and getting into a semi-scuffle with a local officer, Saeed Naqvi, Kabir, who is a no-nonsense cop, bumps into a rookie Indo-Emirati police officer Junaid Ansari, who has never been able to solve a case but has a good knowledge of the town which he acquired during his first incomplete case of finding a dog named Bradman. Both Kabir and Junaid start their investigation with a CCTV footage of Viraj's hotel and find out that on the night of his disappearance, Viraj went out with a local girl, Samira Dalal. On confronting her, they learn that she took Viraj to a friend's birthday party but he left soon.

Later, they roam around the town to meet a local goon nicknamed Khabri Chacha who has information about everything. He directs them to Sameer Gazi, the city's biggest gay party animal who met Viraj in the same party, but the duo are still unable to lay hands on any clue. Finally, they get a breakthrough by tracking down Viraj's cellphone from the apartment of a pickpocket, Ishika, who claims to have stolen the cell phone from a stranger, the previous night, in a supermarket. During this time, Junaid finally finds Bradman and vows to never lose track of him, tying a tracker band around his neck, containing a hidden camera. The duo also manages to capture the person in the video, but discovers that he is just a struggling actor being used as the face in the video by the real kidnapper. However, Junaid is shocked when the actor recognizes the "stranger" Ishika had mentioned as the fugitive who conducted his audition, and rubs a sketch clue of evidence out to Kabir, who asks Saeed, Junaid's superior, to identify the stranger. Meanwhile, it is revealed that the real kidnapper is a cricket bookie Wagah, who along with his assistant Altaf, the stranger, has abducted Viraj and offered him 300 million rupees to under play in the final.

They finally close the deal for 500 million, but when the deal didn't work out and Viraj closeted onto them, bluffing an imposter Wagah into believing he would underplay, they kidnap him permanently till the final match is played. Kabir, a suspended-from-duty Junaid and Ishika go to an underground Arabian club in Altaf's native state Abuddin, full of goons and guns, where Ishika helps Kabir and Junaid by distracting the goons and later Kabir rescues her from them. During the journey, Junaid reveals to Ishika that Kabir suffered from cancer and was betrayed for this reason by his girlfriend Alishka Iyer, having lost his smile ever since. Hearing this, Ishika warms up to Kabir, clicking and sending photos of both together while he is still asleep, to Alishka, with whom he had a breakup after he caught her cheating on him with customs officer Vishal Sinha, Kabir's former colleague. Kabir spots Altaf and both try to chase him down but before they could succeed, a sniper kills Altaf. Wagah calls and confesses to Kabir that he got him killed and they should stop searching for Viraj. Wagah confronts Viraj, threatens to kill his family, shoots both a Mumbai-based partner and his own manager, and asks his wife to leave with their son, finally stranded, with only Bradman, revealed to be their family dog, by his side.

Production

The first schedule of the film started on June 27, 2015, at Mehboob Studio. Varun Dhawan and Jacqueline Fernandez joined the set on 4 July 2015. Abu Dhabi was also a filming location; the production crew chose Abu Dhabi, as they would benefit from the Emirate's 30% rebate scheme.

Soundtrack

The music for Dishoom is composed by Pritam Chakraborty while lyrics have been penned by Kumaar and Mayur Puri, with Ashish Pandit as a special guest. The music rights have been acquired by T-Series. The full music album was released on 16 June 2016. Pritam remixed "Subha Hone Na De" from his original composition from Desi Boyz, a film which was also directed by Rohit Dhawan.

Reception

On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 56%, based on 9 reviews, with an average rating of 5.1/10.

Key details