The buddy-cop movie has long been a staple in both Hollywood and—albeit to a lesser extent—in Bollywood. It’s simple: take two contrasting personalities—typically where one is a stone-faced sourpuss and the other a bit of a good-natured goof—contrive to somehow get them working together on the same case, mix it all up thoroughly in a big,

colourful bowl, and you have yourself a recipe for the sort of bromantic tomfoolery that actors like Chris Tucker have pretty much built their careers on.

Given these by-now very familiar broad strokes of the genre, it’s clear that the only way to avoid falling into the predictability trap is on the back of chemistry between the leads and, of course, as much humour as you could possibly pack in. It is in this vein that director Rohit Dhawan’s new Dishoom, starring John Abraham and Varun Dhawan as the mismatched couple in question, falters: in hewing too close to convention, and failing to inject either personality or wit into the proceedings, the film proves little more than a tedious, although pretty good-looking, patchwork of buddy-cop clichés.

Less than a day to go before an all-important match between the Indian and Pakistani cricket teams is to kick off as part of a series being held in an unnamed Middle Eastern country, and star Indian player Viraj Sharma (Saqib Saleem) has gone AWOL. Soon, the vest-over-saree-clad Minister of External Affairs (Mona Ambegaonkar) receives a video file from someone purporting to be a Pakistani fan, and who claims responsibility for the disappearance. In order to avoid public outcry, the decision is made to keep the news under wraps for the moment while the kidnapper is caught and Viraj hopefully rescued. And who better qualified to lead the march than Kabir Shergill (Abraham), officer of the Special Task Force of the Indian police, a hot-headed but ultimately effective douchebag who has not cracked a smile since he discovered his girlfriend was cheating on him—not that he seems like he was much of a cuddler before then either.

After travelling to the unnamed country with no baggage to his name except a can of deodorant, Kabir quickly manages to wrangle a sidekick, an Indian-born desk-worker at the local police station named Junaid Ansari (Dhawan) who might not be the brainiest pick of the pile, but is at least a decent chauffeur and that’s all Kabir needs at the moment. And so the unlikely team heads out to discover what exactly happened to Viraj, with only the vaguest of clues—and an inexplicably resourceful and extremely comely pickpocket (played by Jacqueline Fernandez)—to rely on.

Although the overall premise probably sounds interesting enough on paper, what prevents Dishoom from taking off is inattention to detail and poor execution. For one, it is never quite able to transcend the inevitability that creeps in early on—if you’ve watched a few Rush Hours, Bad Boys or Lethal Weapons, you’ll know that our leads will eventually learn to work together and the baddy’s days will be numbered. So whatever the “specifics” of their initial meeting, and however they might seem to clash, it’s not too convincing: you know Kabir and Junaid are en route to becoming best buds and dancing off into the sunset at the end of the day.

That inevitability could’ve possibly been moderated had the two been allowed to show some personality, given some more backstory and depth besides these skeletons of characters that we see here. As it is, we know little of who they are and why they are the way they are—except for the purposes of filling pre-set “type” requirements, and this renders them very difficult to believe. The acting is another issue: Abraham relies on a single expression to get him through the entire film—I mean, we know he’s supposed to be stern, but that should hardly equate to frowning his way through every scene and talking in monotone; Dhawan, meanwhile, is a tad more nuanced, but it’s the same cheery, clueless, cute-fella shtick he’s done in almost all his films, and that’s really beginning to wear thin. As for Ms Fernandez, although starting out fairly strong, is quickly reduced to the usual shimmying around in skimpy clothing and needing frequent rescuing. 

The second half of Dishoom is particularly shoddy, and reason—although not especially well-founded in the first half either—just plain flies out the window at this point, as we’re subjected to one stylish action set-piece after another, none of it making much sense together, even by the standards of the film’s own twisted internal logic. There’s also a cheap, and completely pointless, early attempt at pushing a patriotic angle, which is thankfully forgotten by the end. It would’ve maybe helped had the film been sharper with its humour; unfortunately, the jokes—bar a few such as the running gag involving Satish Kaushik’s voice on a long-distance call—feel inorganic and forced.

The film does have some high points, although you could probably count these on one hand: the cinematography is stylish and confident overall, and some of the action sequences well-crafted. I’m also thankful for the lack of unnecessary songs, and the commitment to noise and movement does occasionally work to distract one from the gaping holes in the plot—the none-too-protracted running time is another bonus in this regard. There are also a number of cameos scattered throughout, and among these—though it’s yet another instance of the Bollywood tendency to paint non-heteronormative folk as predatory—Akshay Kumar’s stint as a mega-wealthy boy-crazy socialite is actually pretty funny at times in its sheer absurdity.

To be fair, Dishoom doesn’t really ask to be taken too seriously; director Dhawan doesn’t appear to have any illusions about what he’s offering here—frothy, mindless fare that’s more about over-the-top style and posturing (there are so many dramatic, slow-mo entrances here, you’ll lose count) than any connection to the real world. But the film isn’t nearly silly enough or funny enough to be worth all the time and resources that have no doubt been poured into its making, or indeed even the price of admission.