ABCD 2 Review: What is the full form of ABCD? Any Body Can Directby Mihir Fadnavis Jun 19, 2015 14:07 IST
After the thundering success of ABCD, choreographer turned director Remo D'Souza was handed the golden keys to the sequel. On a rainy night in December 2013, he held an emergency meeting with his top brass to haul out ideas for the new film. A small portion of what transpired at that meeting has been transcribed for your pleasure:
RDS: Alright boys...
Black Suit 1: (Makes rhythmic noises with his mouth)
Black Suit 2: Yo I'ma get on da floor n tap dat who...
RDS: Boys, boys, stop it. I don't want a beatbox. This ain't practice, this is the real shiz.
BS 1: Oh sir, have you procured the keys to the ABCD sequel?
RDS: That's right b1tch3zz, we did it!
BS 2: You did it sir!
RDS: Of course, but it's 11:15, my modesty minute.
BS 1 and 2 both tilt their heads sideways and go Awww!'
RDS: But that's enough fun, let's talk business. The sequel will be about a bunch of rookie dancers from Nalasopara, making it big.
Shraddha Kapoor and Varun Dhawan in ABCD 2. Image from Facebook.
BS 1: The sequel naturally has to be bigger in budget?
BS 2: And also set in phoren locales?
RDS: This is the obvious stuff. Tell me something I haven't already thought about.
BS 1: Sir, let's cast someone big this time. Someone from mainstream Bollywood rather than actual real dancers.
RDS: This is your big idea? I'm cancelling your Prabhudheva break dance tutoring benefits.
BS 1: Sir listen, it's actually a good idea. Bigger stars mean bigger box office returns.
BS 2: It'll just make the film a bigger phenomenon than expected.
RDS: What about the fact that none of the current Bollywood chaps can dance even if I threatened them with pitchforks dipped in lava? I need authenticity and grace in my dance movie.
BS 1: Sir there is actually one such star. His debut movie was absolutely grotesque, but he's delivered a bunch of hits and won a few critical hearts recently.
BS 2: And he can dance his ass off. Plus he looks terrific shirtless.
RDS: Govinda?
BS 1: Varun Dhawan.
BS 2: And you can use his accent to his advantage. He naturally sounds like someone from Nalasopara.
RDS: Ah perfect. And since we need to shoehorn a love story, let's cast another upcoming star in the female lead. Here pick a card.
BS 1 picks a card. It's the queen of diamonds.
RDS: Ok Shraddha Kapoor it is then. Though my dancer gang of Raghav Juyal, Dharmesh Yelande and the rest will make her look really terrible on the dance floor. How would that make winning the competition look believable to the audience?
BS 2: Sir, that's easy, let's give Shraddha's character a foot sprain so that Lauren Gottlieb could simply replace her and kick some break dancing ass.
RDS: Excellent. And I want to make this film even more jingoistic than the previous one. The audience has to feel every ounce of their body writhing in nationalist pride.
BS 1: Sir, all we need to do is contact famed lyricist Mayur Puri to turn Vande Mataram and other patriotic songs into hip hop garbage.
BS 2: And make our heroes dance their butts off draped in tricolour.
RDS: Sanskit shlokas rendered in crappy and generic rap - a winning combo. The music hardly matters though, the dance steps will blow everyone away anyway.
BS 1: Yes sir, Prabhudheva can break dance even to Edith Piaf.
RDS: All this sounds good, but I've faced a bit of flak for borrowing the Step Up formula for ABCD and making tons of money.
BS 1: Sir you could make the plot a meta statement - by making the protagonists disgraced copy cats who get one chance of redemption with originality.
BS 2: You wouldn't even have to make the effort to weave a story' around the three hundred dance sequences.
RDS: You boys are on fire today! Do a cartwheel after this meeting for free.
BS 1 and 2 nod appreciatively.
RDS: Let's set this once in Las Vegas. I'll even get married there to my one and true love - dance.
BS 1: Sir, but don't make the film too smart, make sure you throw in some stupid elements.
BS 2: Like a faux mystery twist that unravels into something cringe-inducing. Or a lame attempt to establish an emo son's promise to his mom - something that will make the melodrama-digging audience wail in delight.
RDS: With you both around, I know why I called these films ABCD - Any Body Can Direct.
***
ABCD 2 review: Not a movie, but a string of Varun Dhawan, Shraddha Kapoor, Prabhudeva music videos
Jun 19, 2015 10:56 IST
by Tanul Thakur
Remo D's latest, ABCD 2, suffers from a strange problem's let down by its very raison d'tre: dance.
For a film revolving around a hip hop dance championship, one expects actors to break into twists regularly, but ABCD 2s many and needlessly frequent dance sequences make it less of a film and more of a bunch of loosely-strung music videos that cant tell a compelling story. Worse, they end up inflating the films runtime: 155 minutes feels at least 30 minutes more than it actually is or needs to be.
Moreover, whats upsetting about the film is DSouza and writer Tushar Hiranandanis reluctance to flesh out its most crucial plot point. Early in the movie, we meet the dance team Mumbai Stunners, helmed by Suresh and Vinnie (Varun Dhawan and Shraddha Kapoor). Theyre competing for a reputed dance competition, Hum Kisise Kum Nahin. Once Mumbai Stunners performance is over, we get to know that their dance routine was copied from a Filipino team. Suresh and Vinnies troupe is not only thrown out of the competition, but also shamed. A YouTube video called "Same to Shame" comparing the original and copied performances"soon goes viral.
ABCD 2. Image from Facebook.
But why did Mumbai Stunners, a bunch of performers who is really passionate about and good at dancing, decided to be so dishonest and so stupid? Who was responsible for this lapse of reason? Why did these otherwise conscientious and hard-working dancers chose to take the easy and dishonourable way out? In the absence of convincing answers to these questions, it becomes difficult to relate to or care about these characters.
Still, ABCD 2 is a much-improved effort than its prequel. This one reverberates with genuine love for the art form, as evidenced by well-choreographed dance numbers aplenty. The initial chemistry between Suresh and his mentor-to-be, Vishnu (Prabhudeva), even though half-baked, is passably funny. Dhawan and Kapoors relationship doesnt follow the tropes of mainstream Bollywood romance: they get together only by the end of the film.
What ABCD 2 lacks, though, is a central conflict and DSouzas attempts at creating moments of tension come across as superficial. Its also confused. Most of ABCD 2 is about Mumbai Stunners core group (later called India Stunners) travelling to Las Vegas, along with Vishnu Sir, to compete in a World Hip Hop Dance Championship. However, in the final segment, the focus suddenly shifts: ABCD 2 wants us to know dance can be used to assert a national identity.
This sudden burst of patriotism is both abrupt and unbelievable because nothing prior to Las Vegas suggested the dancers saw this competition as a chance to put their country on the world map. In fact, for most of the film, the film is all about entirely personal goals. The shamed dancers see the competition as their chance to redeem themselves and given they belong to Nalasopara, a victory would help them inch closer to dislodging the chip on the shoulder that comes from being from that neglected and far-flung Mumbai suburb.
Instead of dwelling into these subplots in any detail, ABCD 2, in its final moments, has Indian Stunners members exchanging verbal volleys with a German dancer. Bollywood films are no strangers to fixating on patriotism where a plot point requires an Indian contingent taking on a group of foreigners. Happy New Year, too, which coincidentally revolved around a dance competition, had plenty of awkward diversions into jingoism.
Based on the true story of Suresh Mukund and Vernon Montero's Fictitious Group, which made it to the finals of the 2012 World Hip Hop Championship, ABCD 2 had a chance to say something important: about ambitions and the price people pay for them, about carving identities through something thats typically considered frivolous, about coming to terms with lost pride. But ABCD 2 couldnt hear these stories. You wonder why. Maybe we do know the answer: The sound from the box office cash register must have been quite deafening.
Edited by B-TEX - 10 years ago
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