Movie Review Mad About Dance

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

Canada: Oye! Times readers Get FREE $30 to spend on Amazon, Walmart…
USA: Oye! Times readers Get FREE $30 to spend on Amazon, Walmart…'Dance' and 'Bollywood' are words that are often associated with each other. The way Bollywood is incomplete without dance, even dance is incomplete without Bollywood.

When it comes to films, there are many of them which have been a 'tribute' to varied forms of dancing, right through the ages of Bollywood. Be it Mithun Chakraborty grooving in DISCO DANCER and DANCE DANCE or the dancing sensation Sudha Chandran in the inspiring film NACHE MAYURI and the recent Remo D'Souza's ABCD – ANY BODY CAN DANCE, Bollywood has seen it all. And now comes, MAD ABOUT DANCE, a film that's about three Asian boys, who leave their home and country to study abroad and dabble with their struggles, heartbreaks, trials and triumphs.

The film is about Aarav (Saahil Prem) and his undying passion for the art of dance. The film starts with him attempting to convince a group of bank officials for a loan of Rs. 25 lakhs to train an Indian dance troupe for the world's best dance championship. In a persuasive move, Aarav narrates a (flashback) story about his love for dance and his dream to train a dance troupe for winning the coveted trophy. While Aarav sets in search of his inspiration, an ace dancer Caesar, he comes across the love of his life Akira (Amrit Maghera). As they succeed in forming an Asian group, they are constantly dragged into dance face-offs by the rival Caesar's dance troupe.

Saahil Prem, who is not just the director of the film, but also its lead actor and story writer, seems to have shot this film in a tearing hurry. Even though he makes a sincere attempt as an actor, he fails miserably as a director. Though the film has been shot in lavish foreign locales and has a blend of western and desi actors, the film fails to create an impact. In fact, choreographers Salah Benlemqawanssa and Supple Nam's dance is thoroughly disappointing. It's quite an irony to state that a film about dance has not explored the elements of the art form appropriately. The music department of the film has nothing noteworthy and if anything, the music was too loud compared to the tone of the film. The film's editing (Meghna Manchanda Sen), dialogues (Kanu Behl) and the cinematography (Uday Tiwari) could have been a tad crispier.

On the acting front, as mentioned earlier, Saahil Prem does a fair job. But the female lead Amrit Maghera comes across as an 'Evelyn Sharma act' gone wrong. With her heavy accent in Hindi and English, the audience is left confused considering that her Indo-Brit parents in the film have a rather strong command in Hindi. A special 'mention' to Facebook, which helps majorly in the film plot's 'update', thus saving a lot of unwanted dialogues. Even though the actor who plays Caesar does manage to deliver a decent performance, the one who plays the role of Henry is only a fashion toy as he lets his clothes and accessories do all the talking without really putting in any effort into acting. The film gets monotonous and its stereotypical portrayal makes the first half boring, however, the film manages to gain a little momentum in the second half.

All in all, MAD ABOUT DANCE is all about amateur acting with mediocre dancing and loud music adding on to the film's woes. No harm in giving it a skip!

Article written by staff at Bollywood Hungama. Read more