From the Rentaul Vault: Dhoom 3 (2013)

For the third installment in the blockbuster Dhoom series, supercop Jai Dixit and his partner Ali Akbar make their way to Chicago in pursuit of a bank robber who's leaving behind an Indian-styled clown mask and a Hindi phrase in his daring, highly visible and very lucrative robberies. Jai suspects circus owner Samar Khan is behind the thefts, but he has no way to prove it and gets booted from the case when he makes an accusation that seems to prove false.

Khan, for his part, is balancing his activities with a burgeoning affection for his new aerialist Aaliya. His mission is more than mere theft, but as he nears the completion of his quest the stakes get higher and he's less certain of his own intentions.

Storywise, Dhoom 3 isn't particularly different from either of the first two movies: Jai is the very definition of cool, Ali is a goofy skirt chaser who sometimes hurts more than helps and the main criminal antagonist has a significant back story. The use of Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan as the thief in this movie and box-office queen Katrina Kaif as Aaliya, along with some spectacular Chicago visuals, set it apart from the first two by virtue of which famous faces and which famous places are in the poster. But otherwise people who've been watching the series will see some variations on familiar themes.

They're well-done themes, though, as Khan and Kaif add to the usual chemistry between Abishek Bachchan as Jai and Uday Chopra as Ali. Vijay Krishna Acharaya moves from writer to director fairly smoothly and takes full advantage of his Chicago setting. Production-number wise, the title credits tap number and Kaif's aerialist displays are the best of the show.

Dhoom is a Hindi word best translated "bang," and cast and crew offer plenty of bang in a series that isn't ever much more than spectacle -- but it's a fine spectacle indeed, although a little overlong and plagued by flashbacks.