Review: ABCD 2 Reshuffles The Dance Movie Deck

Disney UTV's ABCD 2 is a follow-up to their surprise 2013 hit film, Any Body Can Dance, this time with the title officially shortened to the hashtag friendly version for today's short attention span audience. That urge to abbreviate has oozed its way into the structure of the film, which is both exhilarating and exasperating in equal measure. The film will almost certainly thrill audiences with its incredible, and at times almost unbelievable choreography, but those looking for drama or depth may end up walking out feeling a bit empty. Many of Bollywood's worst habits are on full display here, but they are often matched with some astonishingly fancy footwork, both by the performers and the script.

When the heavily favored Mumbai Stunners dance crew are humiliated at a national dance contest with proof that they'd cheated by copying the steps of a Filipino crew on national television, they are sent scrambling back to square one. All they want to do is dance, but who will pay attention when you've become the disgrace of the nation? Suresh, played by Varun Dhawan, is the crew's leader and he's not quite ready to go into that good night. Along with Vinnie (Shraddha Kapoor), he rallies the dwindling troops back into action, but before they can be winners, they need a coach. Enter Vishnu, played by Any Body Can Dance protagonist and India's greatest dancer Prabhu Deva. Vishnu needs some convincing, but once it happens, the team is on its way to the World Hip Hop Championship in Las Vegas. The journey is fraught with peril and mishaps, but isn't that always the way?

ABCD 2 is a strange creature that is singular in its structure and characters as far as I can tell. The film has no less than four returning performers from the original, and yet despite two even sharing the same character names, none is playing the same characters. Prabhu Deva's Vishnu is not the scorned national champion he was in the first film, now he's a penitent drunk looking for salvation. Also along for the ride is D, played by Darmesh Yelande, who plays a similar character with the same name, but a different backstory; Vinod, played by ABCD's Punit Pathak who starred as the lovelorn and ill-fated Chandu in the previous film; and Olive, played by ABCD and So You Think You Can Dance's Lauren Gottleib. All four performers play similar roles to their original characters, but none are acknowledged as returning. It's very strange.

Part of the reason for this is the fact that the film is loosely based on the story of the real life Fictitious Crew, who featured in a nightclub dance-off in the first film. So rather than extending the story, like the Step Up films have chosen to do over the course of the last four films, they've simply reshuffled their deck. It's an interesting approach, but it does a couple of things that hinder the film. First, it effectively kills off our favorite characters from the first film; and secondly, it creates a bit of confusion for those of us who have seen and enjoyed it. Not a deal-breaker, but certainly an odd choice.

One major addition to ABCD 2 is an actual Bollywood star in Varun Dhawan. Dhawan hasn't made a lot of films yet, but he did star in one of Bollywood's most exciting and intense thrillers of the past few years with Sriram Raghavan's Badlapur earlier this spring. In that film, he was a man dead set on getting his revenge by any means necessary, here, he's a goofball dance nut with abs for days and a way with the ladies. The two roles couldn't possibly be any more different, but Dhawan, for the most part, pulls it off. It's certainly no huge challenge for the actor, but for the dancer, director Remo D'Souza pulls no punches, and Dhawan acquits himself nicely next to actual professional dancers and choreographers.

There is no shortage of dancing in ABCD 2, in fact, I have to say that this might be the danciest dance film I've ever seen. Of the film's imposing 147 minute runtime, I would say that a higher percentage of the time is spent on the floor than in any other dance movie of the new millennium. For those of us who want to seen a bunch of incredibly talented performers bust a movie, it's great! The dancing in this film, and the outlandish creativity rivals anything I've seen in Hollywood's efforts. Or particular note are the opening credit sequence, which may have literally blown my mind, and a Chaplin inspired piece that comes out of nowhere and stuns. However, the sheer volume of dancing greatly overwhelms any attempts at drama that D'Souza attempts to inject into the film.

In the world of Indian film, it seems as though there just aren't enough hours in the day to satisfy everyone. Rather than cater to a particular crowd, the films will be everyone's everything, and ABCD 2 suffers from this greatly when it comes to emotional heft. I know, I know. Who gives a shit about emotional heft in a dance movie? Well, apparently D'Souza did, because he attempts to draw back stories around all of his characters to build arcs, but only moderately succeeds on any of those fronts. The result is a muddled mess that really should have focused more exclusively on spectacle. It's not bad, it's just not effective.

The one thing that Indian films can't seem to help themselves from doing is injecting jingoistic nationalism whenever it's even marginally given an opening. ABCD 2 does this exact thing when the crew makes it to the World Hip Hop Championships and centers half of their routines around either nationalistic themes, or Hindu devotional ideas. The idea of India as a strong modern nation hasn't quite filtered down to the people of India, and their films still often shill this post-colonial nationalism that is a bit off-putting for non-Indian viewers (not that there are a whole lot of us). There is a national inferiority complex that the film industries work out in their product again and again. Granted, the film does end with a duel between the German team (always good when you need an enemy) and the Indian Stunners, but I'm not entirely sure that it required-boot powered smoke bombs in the colors of the Indian flag. Maybe that's just me.

If you want to see some amazing dancing like you've never seen before, ABCD 2 is your joint. The film's performances are literally amazing and had my jaw dropped on several occasions. But the story is half-baked, and the execution is sloppy and haphazard at best. Still, I have to give this one a solid recommendation for showing me things I've never seen on a dance floor. Kudos to you, Remo D'Souza. Maybe next time you can focus a little more on making the story half as engaging as the dancing.