Seriously, who let the ‘7 Dogs’ out?

Salman Khan and Sanjay Dutt in stills from the Saudi Arabian film ‘7 Dogs’

Sanjay Dutt plays a dog in the international film 7 Dogs, directed by Moroccan-Belgian duo, Adil-Bilall.

As in, Sanjay's one of the top dogs, operating an intercontinental drug-trade. He's based in India. The other six are similarly, secretly placed in other countries. None of whom have met.

Sanjay's character Ranjeet has every moment of his life filmed on a go-pro camera. Hence, this particular exchange between Ranjeet and a desi woman must've been recorded too. Wherein, they go, "You wanna party?" "Where?" "Mumbai!" "Let's go; let's party!"

Except, Ranjeet is already in Mumbai - which, from every angle looks like it's been built from the light sands in swanky Saudi Arabia.

Only, a lotta muck has been thrown at make-believe streets to make it seem sufficiently Mumbai! If anything, Shanghai and Vegas, in the movie, look crappier.

The second time on, Sanjay perhaps chose not to revisit Riyadh sets for the said shoot. His portions appear to have been shot, over a Zoom call, on the terrace of Marine Drive's Hotel Marine Plaza, instead.
That's the end of him in the pic. He lasts, probably, a minute, max.

One audience's cameo is another's junior artiste! And you thought Sanjay agreed to an extra's part?

Consider Salman Khan. Further, Salman plays Sanjay's personal lackey in the same movie - Ranjeet's ‘Ramu Kaka', if you will. His memorable line being about what'll you eat, "Jalebi, samosa, chai, perhaps?"

Together, Sanjay-Salman (Sanju-Sallu), and others, get on an autorickshaw, torn from the top, for an action sequence, seemingly shot on a shaky cellphone, set to 0.5x, for the big screen, that the influenza could do a better job for Instagram.

Thus, goes the debut of two of Bollywood's top old-world, veteran superstars, on the supposedly global screen!

The desh-bhakt in me can't take this anymore. Seriously, imagine such Indian extras in a pic, made on Saudi money, with Monica Bellucci for the villain, Martin Lawrence in supporting cast, with two random, Egyptian-Arab actors, Ahmed Ezz and Karim Abdel, as heroes?

Well, I watched it in a theatre. So, you don't have to imagine it! What's the bone of contention in 7 Dogs? A designer drug called Pink Lady.

Which, as we are explained, leads to hallucinations that "half its users can never get out of - until they die!" Doesn't that kinda defeat the purpose of recreational drugs? If you stay in its suicidal sway, until you die - brother, why would you ever buy!

One of the movie's eponymous 7 Dogs (Karim), replaced since, and otherwise fine with global terrorism once, opts out of this Pink Lady business.

He's under arrest by Saudis, brought to his knees by an Interpol star-officer (Ahmed). This officer and former terrorist form a curious crime fighting team, thereafter - in search of the seven dogs still supplying Pink Lady.

The film's obviously a massively scaled, multinational spy-thriller of sorts. Which is also self-defeating for its purpose - given this altogether star-driven, Hollywood-derivate, genre flick, is centred on two unknown characters, let alone actors, unlikely to be as excitedly consumed anywhere outside Egypt.

Take, say, the leads out of a Jason Bourne, James Bond, Mission Impossible, Men in Black or Miami Vice type movie - what'll you be left with? 7 Dogs.

Who should know this better than the film's directors, Adil-Bilall, such fun boys, who revived Michael Bay's Bad Boys franchise, that I caught only much later - Bad Boys for Life (2020; Hindi dub on Jio-Hotstar), Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024; rentable on YouTube) - with Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, old men now, kicking serious ass in a high-energy actioner that's as brain-dead, but several times more entertaining: "Bad boys, bad boys, watchugonna do, when they come for you…"

The onscreen colours in 7 Dogs look saturated. Sets seem as fake as its characters. This could be an '80s B-grader, if Steven Seagal emerged from the neon-lights in China! The movie is originally in Arabic.

A villain tells the heroes, "I hate it when you guys don't speak in English!" But they'd just spoken in English, in the English dub I saw.

The film's got into Guinness, for blowing up record amounts of explosives for a scene. I remember that scene. What a pointlessly polluting waste. It felt like AI/CGI to me!

I wonder if the Saudis got had by a greedy bunch, looking at the moolah on offer. And then I see the story credited to a Saudi government official, heading the state agency, that paid for the movie! Maybe, the filmmakers didn't have a choice?

Light years later, I suspect, 7 Dogs will get discovered by connoisseurs of trashy movies for how it was so bad, that it was beyond good!

I'd just wanna know what persuasion skills and petrodollars does it take to cast Sanju-Sallu as extras in a film!

Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14
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