By Samiksha Mehta – Entertainment Editor

This dance movie with a hidden motive – action-packed yet super sad – is so incredibly good, you don’t want to miss it.

[WARNING: Review of this movie comes with spoilers. You have been warned.]

“Street Dancer 3” came to theaters on January 29 starring Varun Dhawan, Nora Fatehi, Shraddha Kapoor and Prabhu Deva, the four main characters essential to the plot. “Street Dancer 3” is a movie based on two rival dance crews competing in a worldwide dance competition for the ultimate grand prize: 100,000 euros ($107,865 U.S. dollars). 

While Sahej’s (Varun’s) crew prepares for the competition, Inayat’s (Shraddha’s) crew tries to help illegal immigrants while also preparing for the competition. However, when Sahej and a couple of his crew members (his crew name is “Street Dancers” while Inayat’s crew name is “Rule Breakers”) transfer over to an enemy crew (“Royals”), the rest of “Street Dancers” and even some of “Rule Breakers” get a little upset and try to convince them to join them in order to get the best result.

Sahej, of course, does not believe anything they’re saying because “Rule Breakers” is their enemy, and while “Street Dancers” was part of his family, he thought that joining “Royals” would give them a boost in the win because of how good the original dancers are. Besides, Mia (Nora), Sahej’s girlfriend, is also in “Royals” which makes it easier than to just meet up at different times behind the “Royals”’ back. 

As they’re prepping for the competition, Inayat tries to hide that she’s a dancer from her parents because her parents are extremely conservative and believe that all dancing is associated with revealing clothing and forbid it. However, she gets caught one day and is in the middle of being yelled at when her brother brings Sahej in and as an apology for smack-talking her crew. 

When one of Sahej’s best friends and crew members finds out what “Rule Breakers” ultimate motive is to win the competition, he switches from “Royals” and Sahej gets mad because they’d always said they would stick together. When Sahej’s friend leaves, he finds out “Street Dancer”’s motive for winning and tries to persuade Sahej but he doesn’t believe anything because of their ongoing rivalry.

As the movie progresses, however, Sahej comes to realize that what his friend was saying about “Street Dancer” was true and just at the start of the final performance, “Street Dancer” and “Rule Breakers” join together for a big breakout performance and end up winning the competition. Now that Sahej and everyone knows the real motive behind “Rule Breakers” insistence for them to join, they donate the money to the illegal immigrants that Inayat was secretly helping and at the end of the movie, there’s a scene of a special S.W.A.T. team helping out with food and other necessities for other people in need.

All in all, this movie – while incredibly action-packed – also carries a hidden message of “treat others the way you’d want to be treated”. The dance crews, all caught up in their rivalry, didn’t even notice the immigrants until Ram (Prabhu Deva) pointed them out with his failed attempt at secrecy. But when they did notice the immigrants, they immediately forgot or pushed back their own selfish needs and chipped the prize money towards the immigrants to get home and safe to their families. 

Besides the heavy plot, the movie also contains really good dance scenes and songs at enjoyable intervals, so when people aren’t concerned about the immigrants and what’s going to happen, they can enjoy the dances and songs as ways to get their spirits up. 

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars