Sonakshi Sinha and Salman Khan in Dabangg. (Image courtesy of Arbaaz Khan Production, Shree Ashtavinayak Cine Vision Limited)

(India, 2010)

While the movie doesn't quite live up to its name, "Dabangg" is pretty entertaining in standard Bollywood style. The film's protagonist, Chulbul Pandey (Salman Khan) possess a fearlessness that the directo,r Abhinav Kashyap, wants us to believe is stuff of legends.

Indian audiences certainly bought into it – "Dabangg" has had the biggest opening for a Hindi film ever. Actor Salman Khan has his share of fans – he's part of the Khan triumvurate that dominate Bollywood, with Aamir and Shahrukh being the other two – but believe it or not, there's actually more to this film than just a superstar getting the girl and saving the day.

The plot, if it may be called as such, revolves around Chulbul Pandey, a corrupt but soft-hearted cop in the rural hinterland of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state (there are more people in UP than in the whole of Brazil). He fancies himself a Robin Hood figure and even calls himself "Robin Hood Pandey" at one point. He's something of a superhero – a cross between Jason Bourne and Rajnikanth, the cult Tamil actor -- when it comes to beating up the bad guys. And there's a lot of beating up the bad guys in this film, which is like nothing so much as a tribute to the revenge films of the late 1970s and 80s which saw Amitabh Bachchan, Dharamendra and later, Mithun Chakraborty and Sunny Deol, among others, become stars.

The typical revenge film involved the hero, somtimes a simpleton but always with a loving mother or sister or both, climbing up out of poverty through sheer hard work and then butting heads against someone in a position of power (usually a corrupt politician or landowner) who commits atrocities on the town/village and personally wrongs the hero by raping or otherwise assaulting his mother or sister. The hero then avenges his female relative(s) and by proxy, the town/village, by beating down the villain.

"Dabangg" diverges from that script in small ways – here, Chulbul doesn't improve his lot in life through honest labour, but via open corruption. He is, as a cop, part of the establishment and, indeed, forms an alliance with the minister in power. However, other elements remain unchanged: Chulbul's mother (a wonderful Dimple Kapadia) is wronged by Chedi Singh (Sonu Sood), another local politician who aspires to higher office. Chulbul's relationships with his stepfather (Vinod Khanna) and (half?)brother (Salman's real-life brother, Arbaaz Khan) are strained, which Chedi Singh exploits to his advantage. But there is the inevitable reconciliation before the credits roll.

"Dabangg" borrows from the depths of Bollywood history and manages to be a parody without being mean-spirited a la Farha Khan's "Main Hoon Na." Kashyap's affection for the conventions of a masala (spicy) Hindi film is obvious and Khan is clearly in on the joke. Chulbul Pandey is stylized to the point of caricature and it is a testamament to Khan's skill that underneath the antics is still a protagonist one wants to root for.

So what explains the movie's stupendous success? Perhaps it's that in trying to make the perfect Hollywood-style movie (think Blue or Kites), filmmakers forgot that much of India lives in its villages. The ultra-slick, ultra-urban movies being churned out by the film industry – and two of Bollywood's biggest production houses, Yash Raj Films and Dharma Productions are the main culprits -- might have alienated rural folk, particularly given their abysmal quality. Or maybe none of the much-vaunted rural-urban divide is true at all, and Dabangg is successful because it's an entertaining film (aided by instantly quotable dialogue) that anyone with the slightest fondness for Bollywood in all its melodramatic glory, be it a city-dweller or a villager, would enjoy.

Reach Deputy Opinion Editor Yamini Lohia here and follow her on Twitter here.

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