Buddy cop action movies were a specialty back in the '90s. These movies were a heady mixture of physical comedy and action thrills. Dishoom is a throwback to these films. Picture it like a cross between David Dhawan's Bade Miya Chhote Miya and Abbas Mustan's Race. This two-hero team up is unmistakably high on masala movie set pieces and easy to digest. It's classic Hindi movie fluff, updated with modern filmmaking styles. It won't challenge your ability to comprehend, neither will it offend your sensibilities. It'll sweetly settle in to your suspension of disbelief, just like popcorn entertainment should.

Just before an India-Pakistan cricket face-off in the Middle East, top Indian batsman Viraj (Saqib) is kidnapped. India's external affairs minister, sporting a big bindi, receives a video with a Pakistani kidnapper threatening to kill Viraj. Muttering 'Is news se dange ho sakte hain', Ms. MEA sends in India's secret weapon - surly, chain-smoking top-cop Kabir (John), assisted by Junaid (Varun). Kabir and Junaid find Ishika (Jacqueline), a hot chor, and several suspicious characters including cricket aficionado Wagah (Akshaye) and rock-faced Rahul Dev, playing Altaf from 'Abudhin', a nation of tigers and terrorists.

A few years back, director Rohit Dhawan had made his debut as a filmmaker with Desi Boyz, an entertaining fare about two men becoming strippers to survive in a bad economy and so, when the trailer of Dishoom was unveiled, we had anticipated a masala entertainer. However, within five minutes of the film, it became evident that Rohit had gone through many Hollywood films to come up with this one, which really disappointed us.

There is an assumption in most films of the buddy crime/cop genre, that every Jai needs a Veeru, every Munna needs a Circuit and every Detective Inspector Lee needs a wisecracking Detective James Carter who will come through for his partner when push comes to shove. Director Rohit Dhawan adopts this prototype for the action comedy Dishoom starring his brother Varun Dhawan and John Abraham. Mentioning the relationship between the film's helmsman and the young actor in the very first paragraph is only fair because although Abraham is the bigger star, it becomes clear at some point that Dishoom is primarily a showcase for Master Dhawan.

DISHOOM effectively teams John Abraham and Varun Dhawan in this entertaining cookie cutter buddy-cop action comedy that should primarily please fans of both the stars. Writer director Rohit Dhawan in his second film (DESI BOYZ previous) mixes the known cliches of the genre with the inherited buffoonery from his father David Dhawan and smartly uses the otherwise dashing but acting wise 'stubborn' skills of John Abraham with the proven crowd pleasing allure of Varun Dhawan to make an entertaining odd couple of cops who join forces to find India's top batsmen kidnapped for a ransom by a bookie.

A star Indian batsman is kidnapped 36 hours ahead of a make-or-break match. The external affairs ministry in Delhi rushes a badass cop to a place "somewhere in the Middle East" to lead the manhunt to find both the missing cricketer and the mysterious captor. Sounds super exciting? On paper, it does. It definitely is an unusual plotline for a Hindi film. But any novelty that Rohit Dhawan's Dishoom possesses ends right there.

Rohit Dhawan's 'Dishoom' is sleek and a stylish film with their lead actors Varun Dhawan (Junaid Ansari) and John Abraham ( Kabir Shergill) on cruise mode. The story very mysteriously unfolds the kidnapping of India's top cricketer Viraj Sharma before a crucial match in the Middle East. This mission is handed over to Kabir (top cop from India) who flies to Middle East, to find the missing cricketer. He picks Junaid Ansari (local cop) as his partner for the manhunt.

There are some filmmakers who make feature-length trailers. They think they're making an action movie, of course, but the fact is that everything -- from an overabundance of slow-motion, to the way words like 'one day ago' fly across the screen in the Dhoom font, and the way the film starts and ends with music videos -- is for effect. Done well, this often obvious style can be rather rollicking, and there are times when Rohit Dhawan's Dishoom is actually fun. The first half is breezy and snappy, and the increasingly irrepressible Varun Dhawan is on point.

Dishoom rejigs the buddy cop movie, with John Abraham and Varun Dhawan being assigned to the Case Of A Vanishing Indian Cricketer. The film is fashioned as a fast-paced caper. It's got flash but the plot keeps stuttering and stops the film from really zip-zap-zooming. It begins with promise. Match-winning boy-in-blue Viraj Sharma (Saqib Saleem) disappears, just a couple of days before a crucial match with Pakistan. Indian special task force cop Kabir Shergill (John Abraham) is parachuted into a Middle East country, which is the site of the crime.

Somewhere in the Middle East, India is playing a series. Viraj Sharma (Saqib Saleem), India's most-loved cricketer is the man to watch out for on the field. During the semi-finals, India beat Sri Lanka to reach the finals, where they will battle it out with Pakistan. 36 hours to the match. Viraj is missing. A CCTV footage shows the cricketer leaving with a lady, Samaira Dalal (Nargis Fakhri, in a special appearance). Back home in India, the Foreign Minister is alerted. She receives a video of a Pakistani fan telling to the camera that Viraj will stay off the field during the India-Pakistan finals. Without India's best batsman, the team is bound to crumble in front of Pakistan.

As shown in the trailer, the story revolves around the kidnapping of Indian cricketer Virat Sharma (Saqib Saleem). Two days before the final match between India and Pakistan, Virat gets abducted in Middle East. Indian special task force agent Kabir Shergill is sent to work on this case. He then picks up Junaid Ansari (Varun Dhawan) a goofy, newbie Arab cop as his co-agent on the case.

Two guys are racing against time to recover a hostage when a Gulf businessman asks them to enter his pool with only their underwears on. The heroes oblige, standing bare-chested in knee-deep water with the clock ticking and someone's life on the line. You'd think this is bizarre but in Dishoom, the six-pack swag has just begun.

DISHOOM starts off with a well-planned kidnapping of Indian cricket team's ace cricketer Viraj Sharma (Saqib Salim) by the dreaded Altaf (Rahul Dev), at the behest of Wagah (Akshaye Khanna) during a cricket series in the Middle East. The reason for Wagah to kidnap Viraj Sharma is to bail himself out of the Rs. 400 crore worth of debts that he has got himself into because of his match fixing deals going south. When the Indian government gets to know that Viraj Sharma has been kidnapped and that too, just 36 hours before the crucial and the much awaited India-Pakistan match, they decide to put their best police officer Kabir Shergill (John Abraham) on the job.