Coming as the third part of the franchise, one certainly cannot expect any great storyline to be there in a film on dance, dance troupes and their competitions. But as a viewer one at least expects the film to move ahead of its earlier ventures, offering something fresh in terms of either content or presentation.
Unfortunately, STREET DANCER isn’t interested in trying any such thing in terms of novelty as it opens without any interesting build-up and keeps progressing on exactly the same note as seen in both the previous films. Plus, as usual it has the tracks that don’t really make you feel like dancing including some pretty bad remakes of otherwise worth listening and well-made hit Punjabi songs. In fact, the film has 3-4 Punjabi based songs just added as per the trend, which nowhere suit either the characters or the backdrops in which they are being performed (focusing on the western dance formats).
The project has a big troupe of star performers and dancers-turned-actors giving their best in their dance performances but the same cannot be said about their acts playing the given characters written too casually. No doubt they all must have given numerous hours preparing for the dances, but I wish the same was done by the writers and director too taking a step further from the most obvious.
In other words, STREET DANCER has a beautiful, well-toned body, noteworthy cinematography and some superbly-choreographed sequences too which are visually appealing, but it doesn’t have any fresh content or emotional appeal and therefore fails to make any kind of connect with the viewers in its monotonously long duration of around 145 minutes.
For instance, the writers add the most clichéd basic plot of a conflict between dance troupes of Indians, Pakistanis and British performers abroad and the director Remo D’Souza even incorporates scenes like food-throwing fight just to cater the film’s 3D format.
So, is there nothing at all that can be given some marks or stars counting as merits?
Yes, it has and first of those merits is the important sub-plot giving a social message pointing towards the obsession of getting settled abroad in the youngsters of Punjab in particular, which forces them to go for an illegal immigration and later face the severe consequences. Though in the film it has been presented taking huge cinematic liberties that look bizarre and illogical, but still, it somewhere hits the right note in the final moments.
Secondly, it has the merit of casting Nora Fatehi giving her enough time to showcase her individual dancing abilities. And the girl scores way above than even Varun, Shraddha and all the dancers turned actors on the screen.
However, the biggest saving grace of STREET DANCER remains the veteran Prabhu Deva and his 5 minutes solo dance sequence wherein he proves his unparalleled, gifted talent performing on his hit song of the 90s singing “Muqabla O Laila”. In just few minutes he so gracefully and humbly displays why he is called THE GURU and how he can make the difference on the dance floor embarrassing everyone else even without doing any kind of gymnastics.
Having said that, it would have been so better, had they played the original A. R. Rahman track instead of recreating it missing the famous solid punch.
For me those 5 minutes gave me the return of my time and money spent. But cannot say, if that would be enough for the readers to go for this typically routine and below average film. Besides, I don’t know how many of you will relate with the kind of dance movements now popularly known by different names in the present scenario. If you ask me, as mentioned above, it all seems to be more like gymnastics than dancing, in my humble opinion.
Rating : 1.5 + 1 / 5
(Including a big one for the 5 minutes song-sequence of Prabhu Deva creating an immensely enjoyable nostalgia. But that will be magical only for the friends who have seen the rise of Prabhu Deva in the mid-90s and have also witnessed the original song and film in the then single screen theaters.)
