Review: ABCD

Cast: Prabhudeva, Shruti Hasaan

Director: Remo D'Souza

Rating: 3/10

ABCD or what they abbreviate it to be -Any Body Can Dance proves just the opposite. All throughout the movie, the prejudice against slum inhabitants is highly showcased, much like the horrid Slum-Dog Millionaire.

The story of the movie is the overdone new-teacher-teaches-students-to-dance-to-take-revenge-against-his-friend-turned-enemy. There is also the regular Ganesha Visarjan dance which does little but help in trying to enforce that the slum-dwellers are violent, (is that why they are the representatives of anybody?) and give the audiences something new to dance to this Ganesha Chaturthi. 

The story is that a Dance Teacher (Prabhudeva) having not done well in a dance competition feels dejected and yet wins because of his friends money-using-tactics. Which leads to a row between them and the dance teacher is fired from what he and his friend started together. Having nothing left in his life (no savings at all) the dance teacher goes to the house of his other friend, a fat man living near a slum and teaching small performance dances to youngsters for performing at Social Events. 

The notorious students set fire to the organisers posters (because they had promised to set the stage ablaze). The dance teacher seeing them randomly being chased by the police, where they show exceptional dance skills and practiced stunts. Which leads him to start a dance class for the students for free, promising to give them a chance at the competition while also getting his revenge with his cunning friend (who is too busy trying to rape his students). 

After showing romances between students who eventually forget about internal rivalry the movie proceeds to a point where there is an unnecessary dance-bar sequence put. The nicer girls try to hold back but all the other people start competing and losing money, which had been given by the dance teacher to buy some audio machines (yes he whips some money out of the air). The teacher gets hang of this and wins his money back and then decides to leave these irresponsible students forever and do what he should have ages ago - go back to his home town. Interject Song. The students dance-apologise to their teacher who after pretending to be the biggest attention-seeking drama-queen (which is a good thing) returns and teaches them like not a leaf had turned. Then a father points out to his son that dance is not a career, so give up all these stupid young teenage dreams and make a life. At which all the students come together and perform for the father, who unagreeingly slaps his son. The son leaves his house and no one knows where he goes to live, but from then on, he becomes the bad guy for the rest of the group. What? 

The students get into the competition, but in the audition, the internal rivalry takes better hold of them and they start fighting on stage (over a girl perhaps). a bigger WHAT? They still get into the competition as the comic relief of the show which was hoping to get its viewership boosted. Insulted the students perform a circus inspired number (which I must point out is the high point of the movie, with extreme and meaningful performances by all the performers) which wins the hearts of everyone and they head on straight to the semi final. Skip the betweens. The main performer, who is also into drugs, dies before the performance. His girlfriend (Shruti Hasaan), though devastated (and being the biggest star of the group after Prabhudeva) does her role and forces everyone to perform. (Cause it only mattered to her). They win of course while also leaving the judges in tears because of their meaningful rendition (at this point the dance steps get repetitive and overdone). Then no one cares about practice and goes into depression until the dead guy's girlfriend again forces everyone to start rehearsing. 

Then just before the final (for which a million teams perform), their dance number gets stollen because of  a betrayal by the dance teacher's once old friend and now rival. Which satisfies the dance teacher since he becomes the bigger man. The last minute dance performance is an extreme of colour where everyone is jumping around trying to look like the normal dancing crowd on the roads. But they don't. They look like perfectly-choreographed rehearsed performers putting on a frivolous show. The teacher says something to the effect that any one can dance and dance like how people dance during festivals. And while you expect to see an energetic traditional folk dance performance (of perhaps Lezhim, since it is based in Mumbai) you see what you see throughout the movie - stunts and weird body wiggling that noone but experts can perform. in a short three second blink-and-miss shot the students do a traditional Lezhim step. No Bhangra, No Garba. Nothing of the people. So proving that only professionals can dance and random people dance weird?

What one does not understand is how this "Step-Up" rip off (of course it is an absolute Step-Up rip off), with all its crime/dance oriented sequences is any sort of creative at all. Its got the most basic story line. 

There is everything that is regular in the movie - a dance one at that. A competition around which everything in the world is based. Check. Getting fired from the job, which leads to the eventual story. Check. An extremely talented teacher teaching students. Check. Irresponsible students, also leading to a teacher tantrum. Both Check. A death or a traumatic situation right before the competition. Check. An old fallen out friendship suddenly revived at the end of the movie (as obviously the climax). Check. While the major part is of course stolen from the "Step-Up" movies, there are hints of stealing from elsewhere to - the entire sequence to follow your own dreams from perhaps "3 Idiots" in Bollywood to the endless Hollywood movies with the same topic.

Apart from the extreme dance moves (which at times did seem overdone and of course imitated) the movie does not have anything to offer. Its an old story in a new set of faces. What is most annoying is the title. It is proven wrong time and again. There is no hint to say that the general public can dance (What? with hand-picking extreme dance performers?) There is just one line that says the title - Any body Can Dance - (perhaps to prove that normal people can dance normally) but to some that seems enough.

Other annoying aspects of the movie are the guys keeping taking their shirts off and the lack of realism in the film. No one in the movie dresses according to their living conditions. Despite being apparent slum dwellers, the students all wear expensive branded clothes in the latest fashions. And the girls hardly ever hide their tummies or bras. (confusing since they all come from the stereotyped conservative lives of living in slums).

What the movie does is to point out that slum dwellers are the regular crowd, and since they can dance, so can rich people living in fancy bungalows. Its wrong and prejudiced with thrilling dance sequences.