Hindi
Aamir vs Aamir
MUMBAI: Dhoom 3 proves to be a good sequel, for once. Unlike many films that simply use the name and brand, it actually carries on the characters from previous movies. Once again, Abhishek Bachchan and Uday Chopra, two Mumbai cops are chasing after a villain, this time as a team sent to Chicago Police to solve a case of bank robberies. The reason being that the thief leaves a message in Hindi and it is assumed that he has to be an Indian.
Dhoom 3 starts off by setting a tempo for the fast-paced thriller that it promises to be with Uday and Abhishek demonstrating their fighting instincts and coordination as they take on a local basti don in Mumbai. As the action moves to Chicago, it is Aamir’s turn to show his mastery with his bike. In fact, Aamir’s arsenal of gears and gadgets would give James Bond a complex!
Aamir’s story dates back 25 years to when his father, Jackie Shroff, ran The Great Indian Circus in Chicago. The circus had not been doing too well and the local bank owner threatened to attach the circus if Shroff didn’t not manage to pay off his dues within five days; Shroff devised a new circus act which he was sure would revive his circus and pleads for a little more time. When refused, Shroff kills himself. Aamir is now grown up and ready to take revenge for his father’s death, which he calls murder. His plan is to ruin the bank, force its closure. He robs the bank’s branches one after the other. His style is that when he robs a bank, he throws a part of his loot on streets outside the bank and watches people pounce on this rain of dollars. The bank is losing reputation as well as standing in the stock market.
What makes these heists exciting is their aftermath as Aamir charts his escape in a long chase by the police with his multipurpose bike. In fact, he is techno savvy and all his robberies and escapes are executed with the help of many gadgets. It is time to get Abhishek and Uday in on the scene. It is also the time for Aamir to revive The Great Indian Circus and to get the glamour quotient on the scene. Katrina Kaif is trying to get a break into the circus but dressed like a geek, she does not impress Aamir’s assistant who keeps rejecting her. Aamir agrees to give her five minutes to prove her talent and sees a geek turn out to be a glamour doll.
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Producer: Aditya Chopra.
Director: Vijay Krishna Acharya. Cast: : Aamir Khan, Katrina Kaif, Abhishek Bachchan, Uday Chopra, Jackie Shroff. |
Having opened up the other side of the story, that of the circus and its background, it is time to spring a surprise on the viewer; there are two Aamirs. The other one is always in the background because he suffers from autism, due to which faces communication problems and has strange mannerisms. That is the circus’s secret behind their most famous trick where Aamir enters a wooden box on stage but emerges from some other corner of the hall. (This seems lifted straight from The Prestige, which tells a similar story about a magician.)
As Abhishek and Uday try to solve the jigsaw puzzle, they spy on Aamir and follow the closet Aamir on his once a week Sunday outing. Abhishek makes sure he drives a rift between the brothers. Sadly, these plots make Abhishek look more like a villain than a supporting actor! These manoeuvres also make the proceedings very slow and insipid especially after the racy first half had set the pace. As the Aamir brothers embark on the last leg of their ‘destroy the bank’ operation, there is one more chase before the film ends by springing another surprise.
Being third in the Dhoom trilogy, some may make comparisons and feel that story/script wise D2 was better; however, this film is much more ambitious, lavishly shot and full of special effects. It has good music that is very well choreographed and the film is a visual delight. With other characters being insignificant, the film is Aamir vs Aamir talent showcase as he gets to juxtapose two totally different characters in the same frame most of the time. He is simply amazing. Katrina Kaif is the other character who gets some importance in this film and she does very well while also excelling in dance numbers. Abhishek gets no scope while Uday is the joker in the pack. Direction is competent and handling of double roles is apt. Technically the film is very good.
Dhoom 3 is set to shatter collection records and create some of its own new records. Expectations were high from the trade and especially the exhibitors and it will live up to them.
Hindi
Remembering Gyan Sahay, the lens behind film, television and advertising
From a puppet rabbit selling poppadums to Hindi cinema, he framed it all.
MUMBAI: There are careers, and then there are canvases. Gyan Sahay, the veteran cinematographer, director, and producer who passed away on 10 March 2026 in Mumbai, had one of the latter. Over several decades in the Indian film and television industry, he turned lenses, lights, and the occasional puppet rabbit into something approaching art.
A graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune, Sahay built his reputation as a director of photography across a career that stretched from the early 1970s all the way to the digital age. He was the kind of craftsman who understood that a well-composed shot is not merely a technical achievement but a quiet act of storytelling.
For most Indians of a certain age, however, Sahay will forever be the man behind the rabbit. His direction of the iconic long-running television commercial for Lijjat Papad, featuring its now-legendary puppet bunny, gave the country one of its most cheerfully persistent advertising images. It was the sort of work that sneaks into the national subconscious and takes up permanent residence.
His big-screen credits as cinematographer include Anokhi Pehchan (1972), Pagli (1974), Pas de Deux (1981), and Hum Farishte Nahin (1988). In 1999, he stepped behind a different kind of camera altogether, making his directorial debut with Sar Ankhon Par, a drama that featured Vikas Bhalla and Shruti Ulfat, with a cameo by Shah Rukh Khan for good measure.
On television, Sahay was particularly prized for his command of multi-camera production setups, a skill that made him a go-to technician for large-scale shows and reality programmes. In an industry that has never been especially patient with complexity, he was the calm hand on the rig.
In later life, Sahay turned teacher. He participated regularly in masterclasses and Digi-Talks, often hosted by organisations such as Bharatiya Chitra Sadhna, sharing hard-won wisdom on cinematography, the comedy of timing in a shot, and the sweeping changes brought by the shift from celluloid to digital. He was also said to have been involved in a project concerning a biographical film on Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy.
Tributes from the film industry poured in following the news of his passing, with colleagues remembering him as a senior cameraman who served as a rare bridge between two entirely different eras of Indian cinema. That is, perhaps, the finest thing one can say of any craftsman: he kept up, and he brought others along with him.
