Street Dancer 3D is a master-class in all
the incredible things the human body can do.
For the run time of this film – two hours
and twenty four minutes – people are pirouetting,
leaping, flipping, contorting and 
moving their limbs in impossible ways.
Watching them, I thought – if the script
was half as nimble as these gifted people,
this film would have been a smash.
Sadly, that is not the case.
What we get is a line-up of endless dance-offs
in which Indian, Pakistani and British dancers
keep trying to outdo each other –
in studios, cafes, night clubs
and even in the streets of London.
Any space doubles up as a battle ground –
in one scene, the rivalry dissolves into a food fight
with people throwing 
donuts at each other.
The film is in 3D so of course some
come hurling directly at you.
I know that we don’t go into dance films
expecting high-IQ storytelling
but this one is unexpectedly juvenile.
It’s almost as if writer-director Remo d’Souza
and his co-writers Tushar Hiranandani, Farad Samji
and Jagdeep Sidhu were making it up
as they went along.
Painstaking effort and sweat has been
 invested into the dance sequences.
The choreography is elaborate, 
the costumes are fantastical
and sheer talent on display is undeniable.
But the connecting plot that actually gives
the dance meaning is feeble
and in places, even comical.
So one track builds the rivalry between these
groups – the Indians and the Pakistanis
consistently try to outdo each other, only
to realize that the real enemy is the Brits.
Then there’s the strand of our hero Sahej
trying to win a competition to fulfil hisbrother’s dream.
And the propeller, driving the story forward,
is a track about illegal immigrants
 from India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
These men came to London with big dreams
but they end up 
homeless and hungry.
Inayat, the leader of the Pakistani dance
group, wants to rehabilitate them.
So they enter a dance competition
called Ground Zero,
in which we are told, the best of the best 
qualify but only the craziest win.
What does that mean?
In an interview about the film, Varun Dhawan
said that he practiced dancing for 7 hours
a day and did an additional 90
minutes of weight training.
Which could be the reason he is bare-chested
in so many scenes, including one in which
he is dancing alone in his studio 
to express anguish.
He is deeply unhappy but the bronzer
and ripped abs are perfectly in place.
The characters in the film are so poorly written
that even competent actors struggle
– Varun is painfully bland.
Aparshakti Khurana weeps a lot.
Shraddha Kapoor attempts to have both, 
compassion and swag but it’s a losing battle.
There’s also Nora Fatehi – she’s a terrific
dancer but in the song Garmi,
she’s doing a step which makes it look like,
and honestly there is no polite way to
say this, she’s humping the floor.
In the same song, Varun flicks sweat from
her waist and sings,
‘Lal dress mein rani bilkul red velvet ka cake lage’.
The only one who makes any impression is
 Prabhu Deva who gives us Muqabala 2.0.
His body moves with grace and 
a staggering fluidity.
Clearly the masters never get old.
Neither do classics like Mile Sur Mera Tumhara.
The song, produced by ad filmmaker Kailash
Surendranath, first played in 1988 and became
an anthem for national integration.
The Raag Bhairavi melody, which featured the
biggest artists of the country including Lata
Mangeshkar, Amitabh Bachchan and
Kamal Haasan, was an instant classic.
Remo reworks it here and briefly, 
the film lifts a little.
But that’s not enough to get you
through this tedious saga.
By the end, you will feel as miserable as
Aparshakti Khurana looks!
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