24 December, 2011

Don 2 : Mushkil nahi Namumkin


Prelude : 3D as a technology was invented 50 years back and had it really done something exceptional to the cinema viewing experience, it would certainly have attained greater popularity. 

Synopsis: 5 years after the first Don escaped, he has become the King of the Asian drug market seeking to capture Europe. For this he needs Wardhan rotting in a Malaysian jail. Wardhan has a key that shall open a locker in Zurich to a tape. With this tape Don intends to coerce the V.P of Germany's premier bank to show the way to the 'currency plates'. This is the Don's master plan to rule Europe by executing this caper. Roma who is now in Interpol is on his tail with a retired or just about to retire d'Silva. I did make a genuine effort to try and tell you more but this is it. 

"Don ka intezaar to gyarah mulkon ki police kar rahi hai!!!"
So said the first Don in 1978 without setting a foot outside Mumbai...oops Bombay then. This is the one line that has absorbed Farhan Akhtar and is the basis of his Don movie franchisee...let the courts decide whether the Akhtars legitimately own this or the Irani’s..ours not to reason why...ours just to see and cry...

Cry???


The first fifteen minutes of the movie truly sizzle and then sadly the flame goes out and how. 

Don 2 is a holiday odyssey made by a trainee at a travel agency who in his enthusiasm to get the best deals jumps across countries and continents in the shortest time giving no thought to the paying tourist. 

Needless to say we have first class travel arrangements in luxury yachts, exotic locales. Fast cars. Only one amazingly talented hostess ( Lara dutta showing off her various wigs and classic sartorial faux pas...a colourfully orange nightgown on an unending pier takes the cake ) and extremely friendly border authorities and officials. So we journey with the old Don who has vanished from part 1 remake from Thailand to Malaysia to Switzerland to Germany.

On the way he picks up a Wardhan from a Malaysian jail(Om shivpuri in the first part had not impressed greatly but his was an Oscar worthy performance looking at Bomman here...5 years in jail have frozen that mercurial actors face into one weird scowl). Given gen nexts requirement, we need a token computer geek. The geek has to be partnered with a local country girl to show his credibility of being in place with the times,  however unconvincing the actor playing the part comes across (Kunal Kapoor totally in need of a crash course from Barry John, Anupam Kher or whoever is teaching acting these days ). So Don and entourage are in Germany and voilaa before one can say “apple strudel” we have the German RBI equivalent bank having an Indian Vice-President ..so first there was the geek and now the veep.explanation given..."after all We Indians are everywhere."

This is where the director has totally lost the plot, there is no cohesive story that links up part 1 and 2 apart from a sketchy voice over and when they were shooting the new movie in Germany the hard bound script that had the story was forgottenback home in India and since no one wanted to travel to India...we are left with a movie that has frames which are very attractive but no rhyme or reasoning to them. German efficiency is conveyed to us in a manner that the bank veep gets an immunity for an international criminal in like 30 minutes...try telling our RBI Governor Rengarajan to do the same for Kasab...if he cant or wont we can still get away by saying this is because of a beauracratic India, the poor Germans have no such luxury.

There were serious expectations from Farhan Akhtar and this movie was his litmus test in creative writing let alone direction. Don had remained in the public memories because of characters like Narang,Shakaal, Mac, Jasjit each one having a clear role knowing what part they essayed in the larger scheme of things.

Watching Sharukh Khan in every frame of a SRK movie can be tiring not to say irritating when he is not looking or performing at his best. Priyanca as Roma has a logical role but then she too loses it towards the end with an ‘ uff tumhey goli lagi hai, kinda line where one feels given the cliched cinematic tradition she would tear off a strip from her bullet proof jacket and tie it around SRK’s scratch” Lara’s character and role is so totally redundant one wonders what is she doing here. If we have left someone out of the performances department without a mention then well its because they truly were not noticed...There is not one song which shall go down as hummable...the remake had a sensational composition in “Aaj ki raat”, here "Dhuaan" is just not in the same class

The ‘why’ is what baffles me...now that we have a movie that is bereft of a story we need to make it saleable and fast because a longer stay in the cinema’s is certainly going to damage its recovery process of investment, hence lets make it 3D,  charge the viewers double and get out fast before anyone realises that “Is Don2 ko samajhna mushkil hi nahin namumkin hai”

4 comments:

Unknown said...

:) :) :)...... we should have watched the dirty picture!

kau kau goes the crow said...

Am not too sure why I still don't feel like going there yet...shall take it on TV..it will be shown soon enough

dotcomgirl said...

I havent yet made it to the theatre to see DON2 probably bcos watching SRK hamming up yet another edition of the already overdone DON is not a pleasant thought. I actually like Farhan Akhtar as a director (and as an actor) since Dil Chahtha Hai and Lakshya and simply cannot understand why he had to do this!

kau kau goes the crow said...

Any one can have an off day, this was Farhan's :-)