Dhoom 3 (2013)

Director: Vijay Krishna Acharya
Story: Vijay Krishna Acharya, Aditya Chopra
Cast: Aamir Khan, Abhishek Bachchan, Uday Chopra, Katrina Kaif 
Music: Pritam, Julius Packiam
Time: 172 minutes
Bottom-line: You can either enjoy The Prestige or you can enjoy Dhoom 3; you cannot enjoy both

The third installment of the Dhoom franchise releases seven years after Hrithik Roshan entertained the audience in Dhoom 2. This time, it is Aamir Khan and Katrina Kaif who play the lead roles, with Abhishek Bachchan and Uday Chopra reprising their roles. Unless you want to write a review of the film (like me) and unless you just want to hang out with your friends, and most importantly, if you haven’t seen The Prestige (which I consider a masterpiece), you can see Dhoom 3. Else, stay away.

Aamir Khan as Sahir

The story begins in 1990 at Chicago, where magician Iqbal commits suicide as he cannot repay the loan to the bank, and because the bank threatens to close down his circus. His child, Sahir (Aamir Khan), vows to avenge his father’s death and decides to rob all the branches of the Western Bank of Chicago. He revives ‘The Great Indian Circus’, and his new partner for the acts is Aaliya (Kaif). Eventually Indian cops Jai Dixit (Bachchan) and Ali Akbar (Chopra) are called to Chicago to investigate, as the thief leaves a message in Hindi after each robbery. As the story progresses, we see that Sahir has a secret of his own, and it is that secret that helps him to successfully perform robberies and also perform magic tricks. But in a parallel track, we see that Jai finds a way to bring down Sahir. What follows are repeated cop-criminal chases, until finally one wins over the other.

Katrina Kaif as Aaliya, with Aamir Khan

Dhoom 3 comes with better locales, better stunts, better acting but a banal story. While Dhoom took place entirely in India, Dhoom 2 takes place in India and Brazil, and this film takes place entirely in Chicago. Why? I guess Vijay Acharya discovered that such bike chases on Indian roads would only lead to the death of all the stunt artists! And of course, robbing Indian banks has become common: seeing it in the paper tells us enough.

The stunts may be twice as better compared to Dhoom 2, and they are also twice as unrealistic. In the previous film, more importance was given to the actual heists: the viewers could actually see how Hrithik steals the diamond, the crown and other stuff. Here, we see Aamir go into the bank, and suddenly money starts flying from the sky, god knows how! The writers have no idea how to show a heist, so they decide to concentrate more on the stunts. But, again, the writers don’t know how to show stunts either. So they watch a couple of Transformers films, and also the Batman trilogy, and suddenly, Aamir becomes Lucius Fox. He can turn his vehicle from bike to Jet Ski to bike and what not? Perhaps he would have turned it into a plane too, but well, that will be reserved for Dhoom 4 or 5 or 6. The slow motion scene where Aamir first comes out of the truck in the bike is the only stunt I enjoyed.

Abhishek Bachchan as Jai Dixit

The acting is better than Dhoom 2. Aamir plays the character Uday Chopra has been playing in all the Dhoom films: that of a clown (of course, the reason why I didn't like Uday's acting was mainly because of his stupid character, and you have to blame the director for that). Aamir’s acting is brilliant; of course, his real talent is shown only after the intermission, but to say why would be a spoiler. And if you feel that any logic is missing, look out for Aamir's mysterious smile. It doesn't tell you the answer, but apparently Aamir is also too confused, so all he can do is smile mysteriously . Abhishek Bachchan has acted fairly well, and Uday Chopra…well, I don’t call that acting in the first place (reason mentioned above)! Katrina Kaif has only a small role, but she has helped Dhoom 3 to break many box office records, because 20% of the viewers will be seeing the film only for her (and I am glad that I am not part of that 20%).

Uday Chopra as Ali (right), with Abhishek Bachchan

The story is both good and bad. Like I said (and you would have also seen this in several reviews), the film contains 75% of the story of The Prestige. The remaining 25% consists of various bits and pieces drawn from Transformers, Batman trilogy, and even tons of other action films for the bike chases and other stunts. There is only one twist I found satisfying, and that is not the main one, mind you. All the other ones were either copied, or were too dumb to be considered twists. While Dhoom 2 has lesser fights and more heist, this film has more fights, more songs (I admit, only the song ‘Malang’ was both good and visually dazzling) and more unbelievable stuff than the previous one. Dhoom 2 was pretty original, while this film is more of a collage work of several other films.

To sum up, Dhoom 3 is entertaining with its stunts and all, but in many action scenes I was like, “Yeah right! How much worse can this get?” Aamir has acted well, the locations are good, and the basic story was poor, considering the fact that I watched nearly all the films from which the ideas where copied from. In short, if you haven’t seen The Prestige, the year ends with a Dhoom. If you have seen the Christopher Nolan film, the year ends with a boom!

My Rating: 1.5/5