Dabangg

I am an NRI, translated into: no-real Indian. I follow Indian cinema in my quest to find only one million original films before humanity as we know it disappears. I will use the term Indian cinema sparingly because I only have access to Hindi films, not Tamil, Malayalam, Punjabi, Kashmiri, Konkani, Nepali, Khasi, Dogri, Garo and other languages.

Dabangg directed by Abhinav Kashyap has some aspects I regard as original, like Mr. Pandey marrying a widow Chulbul’s mother (Dimple Kapadia). I’ve never seen a film where a widow gets married. That is why his mother asks Chulbul to like Mr. Pandey who married her and gave him his name. Baabul is an exception because it is the father-in-law (Amitabh Bachchan) who arranges a marriage for Millie (Rani Mukherjee) after his son’s death.

Salman Khan is Chulbul Pandey a corrupt police inspector who takes bribes from crooks but uses the money to help needy people. He falls in love with Rajjo, played by the beautiful Sonakshi Sinha. She cannot get married because her father Haria ( Mahesh Manjrekab) is the neighbourhood drunk. I also found it original that Haria committed suicide so that his daughter could get married to Chulbul. Otherwise, I found the movie a cut and paste of scenes I have seen in other movies.

Romeo Must Die, directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak
Dabangg has a scene at the very beginning of the film, which looks like it was lifted from Romeo Must Die. Hang Sing (Jet Li) fights Kai’s thugs with a fire hose. He even throws it over his head and under his leg. Chulbul (Salman Khan) does the same thing in Dabangg.

Ravaan directed by Mani Ratnam
Dev Pratap Sharma (Vikram) is the police chief in Ravaan. Salman Khan is Chulbul, also a police inspector in Dabangg. Dev wears dark glasses, so does Chulbul. The only difference is that Chulbul keeps his dark glasses on his collar at the back. Dev loves short-sleeved white shirts, so does Chulbul. There is a scene where Chulbul is wearing his dark glasses and chases thugs. It reminded me of a scene in Ravaan where Dev was chasing Beera (Abhishek Bachchan).

Yuva directed by Mani Ratnam
Dabangg has the same character as Yuva. Sonu Sood is Chedi Singh in Dabangg. He works as a youth coordinator for Minister Dayal (Anupam Kher). His character is almost the same as his Yuva character, where he is the muscle man for Om Puri’s character, a corrupt Bengali politician. He was helped in Yuva by Lallan (Abhishek Bachchan), his brother just released from jail.

Kareeb, directed by Vidhu Vinod Chopra
Kareeb has a scene where Birju, Bobby Deol’s character steals from his own father to marry Neha, the love of his life. His father finds out and hits the roof. In Dabangg, Makkhi (Arbaaz Khan) also steals from his parents in order to marry Nirmala (Mahie Gill), the school teacher’s daughter.

Producers know best
These are just a few films that are reflected in Dabangg. The film made money hand over fist so producers know their business. They are not concerned about original scripts. They cut and paste what worked in other movies and re-package them.

Otherwise, I enjoyed the item boys in the song Fearless.

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