23 Nov 2006 - Dhoom 2

OPM*
Presents – Dhoom (k) 2


In a world filled with crime, the need of the hour is a police officer who can bring things to order. A tough yet sharp Super Cop (like a knife, not a hammer).

In Mumbai, this onus has fallen upon Jai Dixit (Abhishek).
There is, though, a big problem.
The moniker Super Cop annoys him no end and makes him feel like Robocop, as it offends his artistic sensibilities. As an artist stuck in a world of crime and gore, he has had enough. He regularly wears a beard and acts in small, offbeat plays like UmraoJohn on the side, to satisfy his creative urges. Unfailingly, he gets bad reviews and hence has to change his fake beard often, to get new roles. To top it all, his Bengali wife of many years is threatening to leave him, as she suspects that all artists are bisexual. Jai is appalled that she thinks an artist of his calibre would ever have to buy sex and has a raging argument with her (depicted in the form of a song, ‘Crazy kiya re’) She leaves him.

Meanwhile in various locations around the world:

Career travel-writer Mr. Eh (pronounced ‘aye’ and played by Hrithik) is having a really tough day. He is in Namibia, travelling into the Namib Desert in search of the rare mythological animal Dhoomketu (Hindi: “Comet” is also a dog in the DC comics franchise “Comet – The Super Dog”). He finds a tattered copy of the comic on the train he is on and is satisfied.
There is, though, a big problem.
Mr. Eh is a kleptomaniac (Greek: kleptein, "to steal" is an inability to resist impulses of stealing). In sharp contrast to his failure at being a travel-writer, he is the biggest and most successful kleptomaniac the world has never seen.
On board the train is a royal family carrying a 300 year old royal WC (Abbreviation for Water Closet/flush toilet) which has been passed on in the family ever since their ancestor, King GM.Rao, proclaimed that the royal WC would remind them never to be royal pains in the a**.
Mr. Eh pulls off a baffling crime when he steals this worthless piece of loo-t and vanishes into thin air(a minor achievement when compared to the act of vanishing into thick air)
Everyone is baffled as to why anyone would steal a 300 year old WC and a cry of ‘Eh??!!!’ goes up across the world as Reuters wires the news out. Mr. Eh achieves instant fame in cop stations around the world and assorted nut-jobs start researching his life and crimes (just like all the research that is happening just now on topics like ‘Natural Disasters and your pets’, ‘Botox’, Aussie Cricket, Theology etc)

One of these nut-job researchers is a pretty indian cop called Shonali Bose(Bipasha). She uncovers rare and useless tidbits about Mr. Eh including an unbearable and ‘Eh??!!’-inducing list of his thefts. Topping the list are these:

12 refrigerators stolen from Eskimo households
88 shaving razors stolen from the home of the Indian PM
19000 items of clothing stolen from Reiki Saw-an-ant and Ka**mira S ( TV Show plug: Only one piece of clothing left. Watch Big Ba** !! )

Shonali, after a lot of research, comes to the conclusion that Mr. Eh will strike next in Mumbai, as that is where the worlds largest collection of inane artefacts are (Silly state politicians and their sons, aging film stars and their sons, madcap pop artists like Baba Seagull, crazy socialites etc).

Shonali, Jai Dixit and Ali (Uday Chapra), the mechanic-turned-cop, become allies and vow to nab Mr. Eh in Mumbai.
There is, though, a big problem.
Ali can’t connect to his new job, as it has nothing to do with bikes and decides to ask his boss, Jai Dixit, to transfer him to the Traffic Police department.

Around the same time:

Mr. Eh lands in Mumbai still in search of Dhoomketu. He meets Chaandi (Aishwarya), a girl who sells fake silver jewellery. She cons him into believing that she once sold a silver collar to Dhoomketu the dog. All she actually wants to do is travel the world on Mr. Eh’s money thus fulfilling her ambition of being Miss World. She dreams of wearing string bikinis on the beaches of Durban and Rio (much like the rest of us would want her to).

There is, though, a big problem.
That is what follows.

What follows is a mind-blowing action comedy that stretches from the desert of Namibia to the backwaters of Goa and finally to the “Wild n Exotic” Rann of Kutch in northern Gujarat.

Our five characters chase their dreams and each other through Greater Rann (8500 sq km) and Little Rann (5500 sq km) almost endlessly, till they run out of fuel, at which point they do a plug for a brand of Extra Premium Petrol.

Who will win at the Rann of Kutch, while the others remain also-rans? Will Jai Dixit fixit? What will Mr. Eh steal this time? Will it be Chaandi’s bikini? Will Shonali wax eloquent on a beach somewhere (like I always say, Wax before hitting the beach!)? Will Dhoomketu ever be found? Is the movie called Dhoom 2 (Dhoomketu) only because movies like this appear only once in many, say 76 years, like the Halley’s comet? Is this a good thing that we must be thankful about?

Watch the movie tomorrow to find out!


* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release