Let your heart and soul indulge into dance and dance will carve itself into your soul. This is the simple moral of the movie. Even if you are not a dance lunatic, this film will enthrall and make you jiggle and wiggle. With very limited mainstay actors like Prabhudeva, Ganesh Acharya and Kay Kay Menon, the ace choreographer turned director Remo D'Souza embarks a large amount of responsibility on a young group of sizzling dancers. This is India's own retort to Hollywood version of Step Up. Well let's shake a leg and see what the fuss is all about:
The Plot:
As the trailer predicts Vishnu (Prabhudeva) is the chief choreographer of India's biggest Dance Company JDC run by Jehangir (K K Menon). He gets thrown out after Vishnu finds out the JDC is corrupt with Jehangir's venal ideas. Crestfallen he plans to leave the city, only to be cajoled by his friend Gopi (Ganesh Acharya). Looking down the street he finds a group of amazing wacky youths full of energy in their freestyle running and mindboggling dance during Vinayak Chathurthi.
Vishnu gets a flash of what they could become if properly trained and manipulates them to learn dance from him somehow. However D (Dharmesh) and Rocky(Salman) are archrivals and Vishnu has a torrid time synchronizing this group. Gradually the troupe grows by adding newcomers. As India's most grandiose dance competition gets ready to commence, will Vishnu and his bunch of raw talents make it big against the enormous JDC or not, forms the crux. The director tries to make this movie not just about dance, but a cocktail of friendship, envy, Love, drug addiction, jealousy, betrayal and parent's opposition.
Watch out for:
Dance routines that make you jiggle and wriggle right in your seat and wish you'd pop out and dance right away. An abode of Dance India Dance participants makes the cast, and they emote pretty well for a first timer in acting. Indian cinema is always full of glitz and shiny elements like a caramel coated popcorn, Dance has always been a factor which comes to the mind only because of legendary songs like "Muquabula", "Mein Aisa kyu hun" , "Salangai Oli", "urvasi" and hundreds more, predominantly because of the dedicated motions. Hence forth ABCD will carve a niche among these.
At some instances you get a feel of overdose of dance and songs, but what more to expect out of a dance flick. Remo has done the casting with the most deserving dancers in the town, in a nutshell the best! Rather than scripting it with actors who are little anonymous to Remo, he builds the fort with a team of dancers who drive the spirit of the movie by bombarding with authenticity. 3D effect of the film is a combination of good and bad, at some places they refine your vision and the rest it's spectacular. An overall dose of jumping, contemporary, freestyle, Indian, quirky and every generic dance is this fiesta. Watching Prabhudeva dance after a long time is also such a treat to the eyes, however the much acclaimed Muquabula 2.0 is missing. To add lastly, the final Ganesh dance ups the spirit by a glorious level, striking the perennial chords of your soul with an awe inspiring dance sequence.
Few Letdowns:
However good this dance flick can be, the script jolts whimsically, making it tough to catapult the hype and hoopla beyond the floating river of success. Because of the patchy narration and screenplay the amount of sentiment looks more than necessary even though it sticks to the storyline. Sachin's music though convincing with foot tapping beats, lacks in registering songs into the memory. Even with Indian MJ Prabhudeva at the helm of affairs, Remo does not use him to an effective level as there is only one dance from the guru himself. Some of the climax scenes as usual show the troupe taking a "Larger than life" avatar just in time, even though your brain fails to accept it, the heart says it's alright! Another "could have been" factor is that considering the Tamil version, Prabhudeva could have dubbed in his own voice, thereby the local connect would've enhanced this movie.
So Finally:
ABCD is a fitting finale of gleams, hiccupping with mediocre screenplay, yet passes the litmus test.
Stars : 3.0/5
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