Dishoom

Plot

During a cricket tournament in the Middle East, 48 hours prior to the final match between India and Pakistan, India's top cricketer Viraj Sharma (Saqib Saleem) goes missing. Indian authorities get a video tape of an unknown man claiming to have abducted Viraj till the India vs Pakistan cricket match two days later and warning them not to cancel the match. Attempting to avoid media outrage, Gayatri (Mona Ambegaonkar), the Defence Minister of India, sends special task force officer ACP Kabir Shergill IPS (John Abraham) to U.A.E for a 36-hour manhunt. After being received by and getting into a semi-scuffle with a local officer, Saeed Naqvi (Tarun Khanna), Kabir, who is a no-nonsense cop, bumps into a rookie Indo-Emirati police officer Junaid Ansari (Varun Dhawan), who has never been able to solve a case but has a good knowledge of the town which he acquired during his first incomplete case of finding a dog named Bradman.

Both Kabir and Junaid start their investigation with a CCTV footage of Viraj's hotel and find out that on the night of his disappearance, Viraj went out with a local girl, Samira Dalal (Nargis Fakhri). On confronting her, she reveals that she took Viraj to a friend's party but he left soon. Kabir and Junaid roam around the town to meet a local goon nicknamed Khabri Chacha (Vijay Raaz) who directs them to Sameer Gazi (Akshay Kumar), the city's biggest party animal who met Viraj in the same party, but still could not get any clue. Finally, the duo gets a breakthrough by tracking down Viraj's cellphone from the apartment of a pick-pocketer, Ishika (Jacqueline Fernandez) who claims to have stolen the cell phone from a stranger, the previous night, in a supermarket. They also manage to capture the person in the video, but discover that he is just a struggling actor being used as the face in the video by the real kidnapper. However, Junaid is shocked when the actor recognizes the "stranger" Ishika had mentioned as the fugitive who conducted his audition, and rubs a sketch clue of evidence right out to Kabir, who asks Saeed, Junaid's superior, to identify the stranger.

Meanwhile, it is revealed that the real kidnapper is a cricket bookie Wagah (Akshaye Khanna), who along with his assistant Altaf (Rahul Dev), the stranger, has abducted Viraj and offered him 300 million rupees to under play in the final. They finally close the deal for 500 million. But when the deal didn't work out and Viraj closeted onto them, bluffing an imposterly Wagah into believing he would underplay, they kidnap him permanently till the final match is played. In the current time Kabir, a suspended-from-duty Junaid and Ishika go to an underground Arabian club in Altaf's native state Abuddin, full of goons and guns, where, during the journey, Junaid reveals to Ishika that Kabir suffered from cancer and has lost his smile since, and she, in turn, warms up to Kabir, sending photos of both together while he is still asleep, to his recently turned ex-girlfriend Alishka, with whom he had a breakup. Kabir spots Altaf and both try to chase him down but before they could succeed, a sniper kills Altaf. Wagah calls and confesses to Kabir that he got him killed and they should stop searching for Viraj. Wagah confronts Viraj, threatens to kill his family, shoots both a Mumbai-based partner and his own manager, and asks his wife to leave with their son, finally stranded, with only Bradman by his side.

On returning to Abu Dhabi, Kabir and Junaid are taken off the case and Kabir ordered to fly back to India. But at the 11th hour Junaid gets a clue of Viraj's whereabout through a camera on Bradman's neck, as Wagah has hidden him in a yacht near the team's hotel. Both reach the location only to discover that Wagah has fled leaving behind Viraj tied with a time bomb after Wagah realised that Bradman, who is apparently his pet, carried over his neck a GPS tracker band Junaid tied out to never lose track of Bradman. With minutes to blast Kabir negotiates with Wagah to stop the bomb in return of 5 billion rupees from Indian Government. Wagah takes the money but refuses to stop the bomb. After witnessing the blast from a distance Wagah walks into the cricket stadium expecting the match to begin without Viraj. But to his shock Viraj is alive and walks into the ground all ready to play as a parallel flashback reveals Kabir and Junaid helped Viraj to get out of the jacket by dislocating his shoulder and all three had jumped into water just before the blast.

After seeing his plan failed, Wagah tries to run away only to be apprehended by the duo. Kabir returns to India along with Ishika, while Junaid, who regains his duty, gets a marriage proposal from an Indian girl, Muskaan (Parineeti Chopra) and he also plans to fly to India to meet her.

Cast

Special appearances

Filming

The first schedule of the film started on June 27, 2015 at Mehboob Studio. Varun Dhawan and Jacqueline Fernandez joined the set on 4 July 2015. Abu Dhabi was also a filming location; the production crew chose Abu Dhabi, as they would benefit from the Emirate's 30% rebate scheme.

Music

The music for Dishoom is composed by Pritam while lyrics have been penned by Kumaar, Mayur Puri and Ashish Pandit. The music rights have been acquired by T-Series. The full music album was released on 15 July 2016.