36. Dishoom

There are some actor combos that become just dynamite when they come together. One of the best examples of this is what Beth Watkins calls Shashitabh. Of course, these two people were huge stars and great actors in their own rights but their on-screen chemistry was just magical. They presented such a fine balance of acting that even bad scripts became watchable.
Of course, the combos need not only consist of stars. In Hollywood, Bud Spencer and Terence Hill come to mind. They started as non-entities and even the peaks of their stardom were nothing in the greater context of Hollywood but their films were definitely greater than the sum of their parts.
When I talk about star combos, I think stars have to be equal (or at least, similar) in stature for the chemistry to be effective. For example, Sanjay Dutt and Arshad Warsi can form a great hero-sidekick pair (as did Aamir Khan and Raj Zutshi in a few films) but the star status of the two were just too far away to be perceived as a 'duo'. Basically, Aamir-Salman is a duo in my book but not Govinda-Shakti Kapoor.
In Bollywood, star egos and salaries have effectively put paid to the hopes of having two big stars in the same film, as equals. Akshay Kumar and Saif Ali Khan did a few films in the 1990s, playing disparate characters, showing some good comic timing and an enjoyable chemistry but they never became a franchise or even close to the number of films - say - Shashitabh did.

Anyway, the point is that John Abraham and Varun Dhawan show promise to become an unlikely but effective 'actor duo' in Dishoom. They have similar star statuses and opposing images. John plays the khadoos police officer well (because it fully utilises that one expression he has). And Varun is perfect as the lovable rogue, smiling a little too much and not going out of the slapstick character ever.
Dishoom is one of those crazy-ass plots of Bollywood where every twist is just an excuse to show the actor flex something or the actress to drop something. "Two policemen rescue an Indian cricketer in 36 hours before a final against Pakistan" is all that you need to know and no, nothing is a spoiler in this one. You didn't expect the Virat Kohli equivalent to get killed by terrorists and India bringing Sachin back from retirement, did you?
David Dhawan's two sons - Rohit as director and Varun as actor - prove that the apples haven't fallen far from the tree as they pull out every trick from the Dhawan playbook and give it a modern twist. Cricketers Mohinder Amarnath, Rameez Raja and Atul Wassan make brief appearances. A Sushma Swaraj-lookalike is the political figurehead who give the carte blanche for the mayhem. Item numbers are thrown here and there. Non-sequiturs abound and old favourites (like Satish Kaushik) pop up every now and then.
Varun Dhawan is hilarious as the bumbling cop. Be it uttering inane lines with aplomb ("Arre Bradman, tu toh Byomkesh ban gaya!") or doing extreme physical comedy (standing on two bikes a la Ajay Devgn as his crotch gets whipped repeatedly - don't ask!), he looks good for a string of such outrageous roles. Dishoom itself looks good to become a long-standing franchise. Which is great because it will keep John and Varun away from films like No Smoking and Badlapur.

[Frivolous Footnote: Wonder why it took so long for a Hindi film to be named after its signature audio effect. Maybe, the sequel of Dishoom will be called Tarantara!]

[Frivolous Explanation: Why did I use a picture of Nargis Fakhri after going on and on about John-Varun? To appeal to the 61% of Indian internet users, who are male. #sexist #sorry]