Dhoom 3 — ★★★½

WARNING: This review contains spoilers.

The third entry in the Dhoom franchise goes to a darker place than its predecessor, led valiantly by villain(s) Aamir Khan; however, where Khan brings something fresh to the table, Abhishek Bachchan fails to settle into his American setting, with Uday Chopra being even worse off. Katrina Kaif rounds out the leading roles with a part that is crucial only in the film’s final moments, whilst Jackie Schroff’s role sparks the plotline.

So, let’s see what works and what doesn’t. Everyone likes dessert first.

1. A change in scenery

Any fears that another Dhoom would be filmed once again either in the slums or cityscape of India can be quelled by the confirmation that, aside from Bachchan’s and Chopra’s opening sequence, the entirety of the film takes place in Chicago. By takes place, I mean occurs in and is filmed in — it’s a glorious change of scenery. Being stateside with Indian actors that even dabble in English a bit is refreshing for the franchise and somehow, perhaps racially offensively, makes the film feel like it is on a larger scale. Although, director Vijay Krishna Acharya may have let that get to his head in overdoing some of the stunts, but we’ll get to that later.

2. Aamir Khan

Aamir Khan is (in)famous in the Bollywood industry for doing only 1-2 films a year (which is considerably low for an Indian actor, apparently), but then praised for every single one of his performances. Khan is a guy who refuses to go to Indian movie awards because he feels they are absolutely inferior and mean nothing compared to the Oscars — while incredibly true, I’d still pay double the price of a regular ticket to see Jennifer Lawrence play the villain in Dhoom 4. Why? The reasoning for getting an Oscar is a circular argument: you get it when you deserve it, and when you deserve it, you get it — Aamir Khan is good, but not that good.

All that aside, Khan is the driving force behind the whole film, being the true focus rather than the buddy cop aesthetic of Dhoom 2 or the bromance of the original Dhoom. His performances as both Sahir, the hard-headed, vengeance-driven twin, and Samar, the autistic, unseen secret are mesmerizing; however, he suffers in intimidating anyone in his scenes shared with Bachchan simply over height, even though Khan is considerably more physically presentable than Bachchan.

3. Katrina Kaif

My lovely Katrina doesn’t actually do much for the film at all minus a minor role of possibly saving Samar’s life in the film’s final moments, which turns out to be a useless role anyway due to Samar’s lifelong dedication to his brother. However, she has one hell of an intro that involves her dancing erotically and via acrobatics, all while stripping down from baggy overalls to a performance tank and booty shorts. Yes, please, thank you very much.

Now, just as with my Thor: The Dark World review, there are definitely some issues that have to be addressed:

• Uday Chopra: his comic relief was 50% of Dhoom and great to poke fun at in 2, but in the more serious and darker 3, Chopra dropping one-liners in every single one of his already limited scenes is dry and unfunny.
• Lack of conviction in interracial relations: the chemistry between Bachchan and Bipasha Basu as flirty friends is unmistakeable, but the same can’t be said for Bachchan and the film’s Victoria Williams — this appears to go for Bachchan and Chopra against the Chicago backdrop overall, too.
• Overdone stunts: as mentioned earlier, Acharya may have let the fact of not filming in India get to his head as he filmed in the streets where Christopher Nolan’s Batman chased down criminals, because I’m fairly certain cops are smart enough to slam the brakes once they see the first 3 cars flip — you really don’t have to stunt flip 6 cars in one sequence.
• Overdown slow-mo: in the opening, and only, scene in India, there are some cool shots that definitely look great in slow-mo, like a guy getting his head smashed into vases of water, or a limbo-bend to avoid the wheels of an auto-rickshaw, but doing it every time Aamir Khan says or does something makes it obvious where most of the 3-hour runtime comes from.
• The kiss: although not nearly as uncomfortable as Hrithik Roshan’s licking of Aishwarya Rai’s lips in the previous film, Katrina Kaif doing all the work while her partner just takes it marks the second time in two years that Kaif has to kiss a Khan who doesn’t understand how lucky he is.

In summary, Dhoom 3 is an attempt at a more mature step up from 2, and where it fails in the areas mentioned above, it does succeed in its refreshing changes and performance from Aamir Khan. It’s good to see that if this franchise does continue to spit out these “episodes” of Jai’s (Bachchan) and Ali’s (Chopra) adventures, then the focus can shift from them and do so on a character who welcomes the spotlight and gives back abundantly.