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Stale tale spoils the show

Film reviews
Last Updated 19 June 2015, 19:45 IST
ABCD2
Hindi (U) Cast: Varun Dhawan, Shraddha Kapoor, Lauren Gottlieb
Director: Remo D’Souza

They’ve got the moves. But they hardly move you. ABCD2, in effect, looks like just another TV show with even lesser twists than what the reality shows manage to stage.
So you have Varun six-pack Dhawan trying to form a dance troupe to represent India at a hip-hop contest in Las Vegas. He also has to redeem his pride after being branded a cheater for lifting some Filipino moves during a previous show. After all, his mother was a Padma Shri-winning performer who died with her ghungroos on.

The young bloke drops his shirt for an abs show. Guru Prabhu Deva (reprising his original Any Body Can Dance role) tells him to go easy on the muscles and bring on expressions.Shraddha Kapoor looks lissome but doesn’t quite pull off the Remo D’Souza choreography. What she does, instead, is purse her lips when love rival Lauren Gottlieb cosies up to Dhawan. Gottlieb, by the way, perks up the show a bit, giving a lesson or two in uninhibited dancing.

When the whirls and twirls threaten to wipe out the entire storyboard, director Remo decides to burden Prabhu Deva with a separated family — Tisca Chopra and her US-bred son whose heart does a big dhak-dhak at the mention of India. Most of the time, patriotism sticks out like a sore thumb with every hand in sight waving a tricolour to Vande Mataram chants.

Somewhere into the second half, Pooja Batra makes a cameo as an NRI hotelier tearing up at the triumph of the underdogs.

ABCD2 team sets the dance floor on fire, always. Sad, there isn’t a story to fuel their steps.


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(Published 19 June 2015, 19:45 IST)

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