Don 2 - A big disappointment

The trailer of Don2 was one of the most promising trailers we have seen in recent times. It was slick and stylish. But unfortunately the movie is not even 50% of what the trailer promised.

I was not a huge fan of Don 1 but there were lot of things in the previous version that had impressed me including the direction, performances and overall styling. Overall the movie was decent and worth once a watch.

However, not much can be said about Don 2.

First, the movie lacks a story line. A famous gangster like Don has been brought down to a simple conman who wants to commit one of the biggest bank robberies in Europe. Movies on bank robberies have been created so many times that I wonder if there will be a new and original idea to rob a bank this time. And Alas there was nothing new. In fact the robbery shown in Don 2 is pale in comparison to many others seen even in Hindi movies earlier. It lacks credibility. Its a band of crooks stealing with guns, grenades and hostages. Lot of technicalities discussed but nothing used in execution.

It’s also a wonder that such a dreaded gangster will have such poor skilled enemies. That they can hope to kill him with a local hitman.

The story and direction has so many flaws that you really wonder this is the same director who gave us Dil Chahta Hai, Lakshya and even Don 1 (Guess Farhan didn’t have to worry about story in Don 1 as it was a remake with a simple twist in the end).

Coming to performances: Shahrukh Khan though acted well looks similar to so many of his previous performances. He has his trademark smirk through out the movie which I believe he should now patent it. The smirk and the laugh was considered overacting in the past but I think now its part of his persona.

Boman Irani and Om Puri such acting stalwarts reduced to paupers is a major disappointment. Priyanka Chopra has so much potential to be a true “Junglee billi” but the director decided to tame her to be a domestic cat. Its beyond me that a girl can still love someone who was responsible for killing her brother and had deceived her so many times. The romantic plot was poor and absolutely unnecessary. It makes her character extremely weak. Lara Dutta has no role whatsoever. You can take her out and nothing will change.

All the rest have been intentionally chosen as weak characters to make Don look strong.

There are hardly any songs to talk about. The background score is a continuation of Don 1 and hence mixes well with the scenes. Some of the dialogues are very good but the issue is you have heard almost all of them in the trailers in the previous few weeks that the novelty factor is totally lost. The only plus point was the stylised locations and the cinematography. The starting scene in Thailand has been shot very well.

Overall, I will rate the movie between 2 and 2.5 stars depending upon how much expectation you go with. Unfortunately, for me this was one of the most anticipated movies of this year and disappointingly falls flat.

A note: If the price for 3D is substantially higher than 2D version, you can safely opt for 2D as there are not many 3D effects in the movie.

Mirch – an assorted mix of 4 erotic tales

In the last few years, there is a growing trend within Bollywood to try out something different. These so-called experiments while were critically acclaimed have been usually a disappointment at the box office. There has been Road,movie, The great Indian Butterfly, Pankh, No Smoking etc. Though there have been notable exceptions of the likes of Peepli Live, LSD, Dev.D. What has worked with these exceptions is the heady cocktail of art and commercial cinema. The scripts have been brilliant supported by very sharp editing and direction. Needless to say the actors performed very well. Not sure of the box office success, but Mirch can be safely put in this second category.

Its an eclectic mix of 4 stories, totally unrelated but with a common theme of sex or if I must enhance the underlying theme is the empowerment of female sexuality. All the stories have the female lead committing adultery and very successfully and wittily coming out of it without the husband even realizing what hit him. The first two are set in the medieval period and the last two post interval set in modern times.

There is no connection between the stories though at some point, the director tries to bring in the narration in the form of 5th story to connect pieces together which according to me doesn’t work.
What makes “Mirch” work is obviously the “mirch” in the stories... They are exotic, they are spicy, they are raw and they are sensuous. But at no point they are obscene. There is nothing cheap or vulgar in it. In fact the way each story ends makes the movie an erotic comedy. I don’t recollect any other Bollywood movie attempting comedy in such a way (may be Dil Kabaddi but that failed to connect). There have been unrelated stories earlier like Darna Mana Hai, Dus Kahaniyan or more recently and comparable LSD but this is certainly above them. It actually tickles you.

To keep pace with this “mirch”, the lead female characters had to be equally spicy and who better than Konkona and Raima Sen to play the characters. They both are so exotic and moulded in their characters that they overshadow all others. Only Ila Arun, Boman Irani and Rajpal Yadav could compete with them in some way. Boman anyways can play all Indian nationalities with equal ease whether it was a Sardar in Munna Bhai or a typical Gujarati in this.

The other characters like Arunodoy Singh (common factor in first 3 stories and the narration), Sushant Singh, Shahana Goswamy and Shreyas Talpade are not much of a match for Konkona and Raima.

At the end, this is a typical urban multiplex or a home video movie. The box office figures should not be considered while judging the performance of such a movie. It’s an experiment and must be appreciated for the different genre it is creating in Indian cinema.