D- Doom or Dhoom. Review on D

When a movie on the underworld regime is made, it causes a lot of noise. The promos of the movie gave us those jitters as D is coming to wreck terror. Everybody has heard of Dawood, the legendary underworld don. And D is supposed to be very closely based on him. But the makers of D deny it. Anyways D is here to be seen, appreciated and perhaps, may be discarded.

So who’s D? What’s D all about? What happens to D? Will D be dangerous? Will D be diligent? Will D be daring? Will D be a darling? Will D die? Will D distract? Will D create a dhoom at the box office? Will D drive you in terror? Will D get detained? Will D derail? Will D will be a dude? Will D … I decided to make an appointment with D and get all my doubts cleared.

But meeting D was not all that easy. So many people were eager to know him that it seemed impossible to get an audience with the Big D. But hoping that we will be lucky to meet on day 2 of his arrival in Mumbai, we dialed his number. Gosh! All appointments full. He just couldn’t accommodate us. Saturday thru Sunday, his hands were full. But anyways we decided to check out his vicinity and finally decided to meet him next weekend. (On weekdays we have better things to do). But a rather curious mind decided to check with his secretary whether we could meet him today and I couldn’t believe my ears. A few people could be accommodated for the 9 pm scheduled meeting. Finally we were going to meet the Big D

When we entered his Den, the euphoria was just unbelievable, there were hardly people inside to meet him and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Come on, when such a big personality is in town, how come people don’t want to meet him? Well, in today’s scenario even people like the Big D has to fall prey to savvy marketing. (Remember how hard we tried to get this appointment). As we settled ourselves in plush air-conditioned comfort, people slowly started trickling. His den was nearly full. Some of the people also resembled the tribe in the D world. Fear gripped us too.

D is the sequel to the Movie ‘Company’ made by Ram Gopal Verma. However D is produced by him and is directed by Vishram Sawant. The meeting with D begins with the picturesque view of Mumbai and a voice telling us the story of a young man. This young man has come from Dubai on hearing the news of his mother’s death. His name is Deshu (Randeep Hooda). One day he witnesses a killing in broad light and the police wants him to identify the killers as he’s the sole witness. However he’s threatened by the gang leader and so refuses to identify the killers. The police show no mercy and he’s brutally assaulted. He gets attracted to the world of Dons and decides to join the gang. He convinces the don leader to take him and that he can wipe out his rival. Amused by the guts of this young lad, the don leader agrees. He gets Raaghav (Chunky Pandey) as his accomplice. The rival gang leader is finished. Deshu becomes a hero in the don leaders camp, but the don leader’s two sons are not happy. They get shadowed. In the meantime bullets keep flying from all corners, people fall dead all around and Deshu conquerors most of the business for the Don leader. The sons, however, are not happy. They start fighting between themselves. The don leader is upset with this rivalry in the house and splits the business. Deshu now looks after Gujarat territory and makes huge profit for the don leader. But the don leaders’ sons convince their father that Deshu is cheating and that he should be removed. The sons eliminate Raghav. Deshu takes revenge and kills all the gang members except for the Don leader. He now emerges as the new Don. Period.

Our meeting ended and the meeting was not so awakening. It failed miserably at many places. Firstly, the fear-anger-frustration factor that is normally associated in such type of movies is missing. Remember ‘Satya’ or for that matter even ‘Company’. Secondly the growth of Deshu is not portrayed dramatically. Even the romance looked unromantic. But some scenes are really worth mentioning. The train scene, where Deshu sees a man falling out (in fact thrown out) and tries to check out the situation. He can’t do a thing as the goons stare at him. A perfect scene showing a common man’s helplessness. Next is the scene where he eliminates the don leaders son in the presence of the don leader and other gang members and says: “Raghav ka account clear”. The art direction is also very natural. But the biggest drawbacks are the songs. I can’t figure out what Rajpal Yadav was doing in that item song. The song ‘Maar dala’ prompted me to say “really maar dala re”. A few dialogues that amused me were: “Sabhi log kuch to kuch ban jaate hai, engineer, doctor, hum hai Gangster” (was it glorifying a new profession?) “Is field mein deemag ki zaroorrat nahin ‘daring’ ki zaroorrat hoti hai” ( hmmmm), “Mera Private entertainment hai”.

Deshu played by Randeep Hooda is charming. He essays his role with panache and I only do hope he doesn’t get stereotyped. Chunky Pandey as Raghav was passable. The rest of the cast wasn’t impressive. Not even Goga Kappor as the Don leader. Isha Koppikar… what was she doing there? None of the other cast is worth mentioning.

At the end Bhiku Mhatre of Satya was still fresh in the mind not Deshu .