Dance as a genre is still untapped in Bollywood despite movies like ABCD and ABCD 2. This week though releases Street Dancer with director Remo D’Souza returning back to his comfort zone. Dance as they say is therapeutic and makes you happy. Does the film find the ‘groove’ with the audience and make them happy or does it face a similar and familiar threat as Remo’s last film..lets find out.

Street Dancer as the name suggests is a dance film with a fixed template – underdogs-rivals-conflict-dance competition-no prices for guessing the end! But here the conflict that is tackled is illegal immigration and that adds some freshness to the story. The screenplay is such that the story begins on a rather wobbly and frivilous note with not much happening in the first 20 mins besides the introduction of characters. And so you think you are sold down the river again! But once the film touches on the main conflict, the ascend begins! And the second half is superbly written with goosebump after goosebump in the pre finale and finale when the dancers take the stage. Cliched but very effective! The dialogues are apt. Music is good but I fail to understand why older(and even newer) songs are recycled film after film. Some of the original songs though, especially ‘Menu Pind jaana ve’ work big time. A special mention to the dance pieces which are expertly choreographed and performed, coupled with the outstanding camera work and 3D effects which add flavour to the sequences! Director Remo D’Souza begins on a patchy note perhaps suffering from the hangover of his last train wreck, Race 3. But soon he finds his mojo and that is when the tempo of the film changes!

Aparshakti Khurana in a cameo has done a fabulous job and he leaves you with goosebumps with his performance. Nora Fatehi adds to the ‘Garmi’ but her performance is average. From the lot, Dharmesh, Salman, Raghav and Punit shine though almost all of them are underutilized and hidden behind the ‘stars’. Prabhudeva, the God of Dancing, is impressive and should continue to act instead of directing films(which is just not his forte). Shraddha Kapoor has done a good job though she is the weakest dancer from the lot. Varun Dhawan does what he knows best, act-dance-overact at times in that order, even though his character is grey for most parts of the film. But he is effective for the most parts

In times of hate and chest thumping nationalism(at times pseudo too), this movie comes as a breath of fresh air, touching upon the concepts of universal brotherhood. And this is what works in the film- its final message. Street Dancer is a great watch also for people who love Dancing! Watch it for some amazing dances! Dance all the way to a theatre near you! Coz Dancing is indeed therapeutic and seems to have healed me and put me in a good mood again!!

PS : When the song ‘Bezubaan Kabse Main Raha, Begunaah Seheta Main Raha’ played, I felt it!