Dabaang - Troperiffic Hindi Action Movie Musical

So I'm watching this film called Dabaang. It's the most hilarious thing I've seen in a long while. It's stupidly awesome. It's awesomely stupid. It relies on Rule of Cool so hard, you can only forgive it many, many Acceptable Breaks from Reality.

It's a story about an incorruptible Showy Invincible Hero Cowboy Cop who kicks ass For Great Justice and acts as the Robin Hood of the Indian masses in the district that is his Protectorates. When he enters a scene with a bunch of goons who've kidnapped some rich guy's kid, his coworkers wait outside, more worried about the goons than about him. And they are right, as he gets the goons more terrified Batman ever does; to begin with, the guy doesn't enter by breaking a skylight or anything that dramatic - instead, he rams and crushes a brick wall on his Jeep. Remember that scene in The Matrix Reloaded where Neo beats up a bunch of smiths by sticking a pole on the ground and using it run all over them? This is the least of the stunts this guy pulls. He tosses men around like they are rag-dolls. No explanation whatsoever is given of his inhuman strength. Though it seems heavily implied that it comes from sheer righteousness. Once the situation is resolved, he convinces the rich guy to pay the ransom to the charity fund he runs instead, with one sentence: "You will give a million to the killer, but not to the saviour?" threatens to reveal all of his business malpractices to the police if he doesn't comply]]. And once the criminals are caught, they stay caught, even if technically they are in a Cardboard Prison. Why? Because they dare not escape.

And that's just in the first ten minutes.

And then begins a musical number where the whole neighborhood celebrates how awesome The Hero is.

And it goes on from there!

EDIT: Apologies, that's the opening of the sequel. The original is slighly more subdued.

edited 9th Feb '14 6:52:45 AM by TheHandle

I came across the movie poster for this one time when looking for content for a game on Bollywood Movie Posters.

Happy to find out that the metaphorical "book" is truly as crazy, stupid as its "cover".

Then you find out about the protagonist's private life. It's Kung Fu Hustle levels of silly and King Of The Hill levels of dysfunctional.

Ach Mein Gott, it's so beautiful.

I thought I couldn't take any more So Bad, It's Good parodies. I was wrong.

You don't screw with the Chulbul.

edited 9th Feb '14 2:31:26 PM by TheHandle

It's a shame there isn't much English-dubbed Bollywood cinema out there, just like old-school kung fu. I'd be watching a hell of a lot more Bollywood output if that were the case.

There's lots of decent subs, though.

Eh, most movies I watch nowadays play alongside text chats, and trying to read two different things at once is difficult. Dubs are funnier, anyway.

This is "Hindi" film friend not "Hindu". BTW this kind of films is quite normal in our cinema. I can give you the names of hundreds of films like this in Hindi. Actually this kind of genre is new to bollywood. It first starts in Telugu and Tamil cinema. But when bollywood gone short with new ideas they starting to make remakes of southern films. This kind of films fits masala genre. Yeah, but i agree its totally over the top and unrealistic. Chulbul "Robin Hood" Pandey!

The film really won me over when the wife berated the magnate for siccing detectives on her rather than their son, and when she threatened to go public with all of her husband's shady deals. "Would you rather pay the millions to the kidnappers, or to the saviour?"

That the criminals don't need metal bears on their cells because they're too scared of Chulbul to leave is hilarious.

And Chulbul is such a massive dork in his private life

Have you got more films like that you can recommend, my friend?

There's a sequel called Dabangg 2, but the Chulbul Pandey guy (Salman Khan) has pretty much made a career of these over the top action movies: Wanted (2009), Bodyguard (2011), Ek Tha Tiger (2012), and Kick (2014) are all well-regarded by people who like this kind of thing, and Jai Ho (2014) and Veer (2009) sound like they might be fun in a trainwrecky kind of way.

Other movies in this genre with different stars include: Singham (2010), Singham Returns (2014), Rowdy Rathore (2012), Chennai Express (2013), R...Rajkumar (2013) and Boss (2013). The director of Wanted, Rowdy Rathore and R...Rajkumar has a new movie coming out this weekend called Action Jackson, so you might check and see if a theater near you is carrying it.

The absolute king of OTT Indian films is the Tamil film Endhiran-you might find the Hindi dub "Robot" easier to get hold of with subtitles though.

edited 3rd Dec '14 10:31:45 AM by odadune

Awesome.

If they could combine this kind of formula with the absolute chick flick, it would win everyone over. Closest thing to this kind of blend that I remember was The Princess Bride. Oh, and Knight And Day, that one was fucking awesome as well.

edited 3rd Dec '14 10:40:16 AM by TheHandle

Oddly enough, Bollywood just did an official Knight and Day remake called Bang Bang, with the heroine of Ek Tha Tiger. Haven't seen it yet, but might be worth a look. Chennai Express is also reputed to be somewhat chick-flick-y, or chick-flick-parodying.

I personally am fond of Holiday (2014) which isn't quite as OTT as some of the above, but if you ever wondered what the Taken movies would look like if Liam Neeson took time out from hunting baddies to woo a woman 17+ years his junior* with Slap-Slap-Kiss comedy tropes and song and dance numbers, Holiday is your best chance to find out.

• played by the Dabangg heroine, who does a lot of these movies.

edited 3rd Dec '14 10:54:36 AM by odadune

I wouldn't recommend Chennai Express because you will not get the same feeling as North Indian would. Another Salman khan film Ready (2011) is better and maybe it fits your definition. Also Son of Sardar (2012) also fits in. As above troper said it, almost all films of Sonakshi Sinha are over the top action film. In my opinion Ek tha Tiger got the best "realistic" action scenes of this kind of film. Also World's Most Beautiful Woman (at least India's) Katrina Kaif is in it.

edited 5th Dec '14 8:56:01 AM by Hinduboyzephyr

For anyone else interested in discussing other Bollywood films, there's also the General Bollywood Thread.

As for Dabaang, I have yet to see that 'beauty'.

The hero wears aviators all the time? Maybe they should make an Axe Cop movie in this style.

More films that come to my mind is Boss (2013) and Khiladi 786 (2012). These are more stupid films of Akshay Kumar who did this kind of films these days. In one of these he is a Haryanvi Superman (in reality a local goon). Break iron as it is made of light plastic. These films are the granddad of over the top films. Dabbang is more realistic comparatively. To put this in context, in one scene he breaks a Jeep's front by putting his leg above it.

edited 7th Dec '14 12:47:57 AM by Hinduboyzephyr

Why is this not being merged with the general bollywood thread....?

Because it's not quite the same set of actors, directors, and so on? Kind of how Sci Fi doesn't overlap very much with "general hollywood"?

edited 7th Dec '14 11:08:11 AM by TheHandle

Um. No.

Dabaang is as general as you can get with regards to Bollywood. If you were talking about Indian Art House cinema, you'd be correct, but this is EXACTLY the type of film one thinks of for general bollywood movies.

Oh. When I think Bollywood, I think Devdas or Kabhi Kushie Kabhie Gomh.

Five-hour long epic relationship dramas about obscenely rich people, with maybe the occasional chosen Cinderella. Intense traditional family values. Patriarchy.

Not, well, the utter mess that is Chulbul's private life, or his heroic hoodlum antics. Or the yellow dusty poverty of his life.

Also, the utter lack of any scenes of Switzerland as Paradise on Earth is very remarkable.

Bole chudiyaaaaaaaan...

More importantly, we don't have a general Hollywood thread, why should we have one about Hong Kong, Bombay, etc?

edited 7th Dec '14 3:22:28 PM by TheHandle

Because this is a mostly western-oriented forum and Bollywood is a genre that doesn't get much coverage. That's why.

Also, Dabaang is hardly unique. Even in the time period you were referencing (early 2000s/late 90s) you had action comedy musicals (Khiladi is an example of this), nevermind some of the most famous movies of B-wood are NOT epic romances.

Well, there's the one where they contacted an alien with arpeggios, which was filmed entirely in Switzerland for some reason. Lots of kids in bicycles.

I also remember the title Kush Kush Hota Hei but can't remember what it was about.

And Mother India, but that's hardly a Bollywood-style film.

Point is, I've been trying to expand on Bollywood after the two previously mentioned epics seriously impressed me, and... well, there was a lot of very boring, very dumb stuff. The movies looked like they had been filmed in a day! There just seemed to be no effort put forth in anything, and even the dance numbers were sub-par! I remember a dude with a Carpet of Virility and a Badass Mustache pulling a plane while singing to his beloved; it was strange.

edited 8th Dec '14 3:47:52 AM by TheHandle

The first one was 'Koi Mil Gaya', a somewhat uniquely Bollywood combination of ET The Extra Terrestrial and Forrest Gump, which actually had two sequels in the form of Krrish and Krrish 3 (don't ask), about the hero's son (who looks exactly like him) becoming a superhero. Krrish 3 is actually one of the movies I'd recommend you to watch for sheer bad movie value.

The second is 'Kuch Kuch Hota Hai', perhaps the second Bollywood romantic comedy (the first, of course, being DDLJ), where girl loves guy, guy loves and marries other girl, other girl dies leaving guy with daughter, and daughter is involved tangentially in getting guy and first girl together just before her wedding to some guy.

Honestly, I didn't mind Dabangg, or Salman Khan's movies in general, but honestly his recent work is shit (Bodyguard, et al). And why wouldn't it be; you could make a movie called 'Salman Khan's Ass' and that would make oceans of money, so obviously effort is... spared during production in terms of plot, etc.