Cast: Varun Dhawan, Shraddha Kapoor, Prabhu Deva
Directors: Remo D’Souza
Producer: Bhushan Kumar, Krishan Kumar, Lizelle D’Souza
It’s imperative that this genre has incredible choreography and intense dance-offs.
Unfortunately, director Remo D’Souza takes off with his focus solely on dance-offs without even a thread of a story. The lead pair throwing attitude at each other with no valid reason and having a listless dance-off is so time-worn that the biggest flaw is its lack of sparkling freshness.
Set in London probably for the subsidy that you get there, Remo attempts a weak story where Pakistani girl Inayat is all heart as she teams up with Indian Ram Prasad to feed illegal immigrants. For some strange reason, hero Sahej who has so far had normal, emotional equations with his brother and his friends, suddenly turns arrogant and unfeeling. There’s no emotional graph for anything that unfolds out there.
In the second half, there’s a more concerted effort to infuse a storyline into what’s essentially just a string of soulless dance-offs. But a tepid Indo-Pak bhai-bhai team with something about helping illegal migrants from India and Pakistan, is hardly interesting.
The main problem however are the unending dance-offs, the most vital element in this genre. Remo has one dance-off after the other but none of them are driven by adrenaline and don’t have the palpable excitement of rivalry.
Additionally, the music isn’t catchy. Prabhudevaa dancing once again to two-decade-old ‘Muqabla’ has a tired, old feel to it and I’m not referring to his ability to dance. But that’s what ails this film. All the dances and dance-offs are seen-before pieces. With dancers jumping off human pyramids or doing flips and spins which have all been done to death, what you miss is freshness in the choreography. A Ganesha number that has all the dancers coming together breaks predictably to show Inayat offering namaaz.
For a film aimed at a youthful audience, there is no romance either.
The production is lavish but when weak music and endless dance-offs are topped by an absence of coherent storytelling, it is as disappointing as a pyramid toppling over and crashing.
Varun Dhawan is energetic in his dancing but honestly looks baffled about what he’s supposed to be doing when he’s not dancing. Shraddha Kapoor also dances well but has little else to do.
Verdict: For a dance-based film that falls short in all the vital departments, Street Dancer 3D gets a 2.5* rating.