'Don 2 ki sabse badi galti yeh hai , ki don ke koi real dushman hi nahi hai.' . Since cool , slick, suave, sophistication and everything in this world is relative. And since Mission Impossible 4 has a plot involving an Indian satellite media tycoon, the world is the playing field for Don 2 as a movie if I count the Malays and Chinese who were in the theater with me in Singapore. Hence Farhan Akhthar has to deliver the cool of Ocean's Eleven, the sophistication of MI and the kickass quality of James Bond and the action of Bourne identity with the megalomania of a man in his 40s who wants to be king at all costs better known to us as SRK. Bahut Naainsaafi hai.
Don 2 is a very worthy sequel , since it builds well on the first one. So Don now controls drugs in Asia ( the Thais are easy meat always for Bollywood since most of our real dons hang out there) and he wants to get to Europe. But some tapes are still with Vardhan so he needs to get him out of jail to outwit Interpol and implicate the European cartel. And to fund his new European ambitions, Don 2 needs access to the printing plates of the Euro in Germany ( wish the Greeks had contacted Don instead of Angela Merkel and Sarkozy, tch tch) . So Don has some video tape from Singhania that shows the VP of the bank murdering a potential CEO and this VP an Indian (Alyy Khan) will provide the security keys to the plates. ( There is a clever line by Don that says Indians are everywhere but I sincerely hope this has no reference to Anshu Jain the co-CEO of Deustsche Bank a guy whom every IIMite and banker holds in the highest of esteem)
So far so good. When you see the first few scenes of Don 2 , you cant help enjoy the kick that SRK getting from this movie, its adrenalin, endorphine, testosterone and stardom's ultimate cocktail and SRK wants it badly . Don is his alterego. This is why the movie works in first place since you almost root for the bad guy , and this is why SRK become a star in first place , the original Baazigar. So if you dont love this part of SRK, you will never like Don 2. And Farhan Akhtar pays the directorial ransom for this especially when he induces lines like Don saying I love love stories with tongue in cheek humour at a critical juncture and allowing SRK to spoof himself in the Roma romantic angle. But pardoning that, SRK delivers some of the coolest lines like Sir bahut shareef lagta hai call me Don with such chutzpah, that you cannot help applauding.
Despite setting a good stage , having SRK on steroids and an ultra sleek cinematographer ( I daresay i found some parts better shot than MI4) , Farhan Akhtar loses steam and sputters hunting for twists and turns that boobytrap his efforts. The main flaws are
1. If Don is the coolest guy in the world, he needs competitors of substance. Its ok if he can finish off the Thai drug mafia in a jiffy in the opening scene but as the movie progresses, the lack of real competition really irritates. So you have the Interpol Chief Malik who should have retired long ago, painfully lacking in intent and vigour with Om Puri reciting dialogues like the JKLakshmi Cement commercial. Roma as the young upstart officer is so lost not only in characterization and also in the way Priyanka plays it. Her best moment is when she wears a back less gown in the fundraiser rather than a bulletproof vest. Boman Irani never cracked Vardhan even in Don 1 and here he appears as a bored passenger of the SRK entourage. He almost provides comic relief in the climax showing how miscast he is .
But the worst part is the plot involving the deputy German bank who is being blackmailed by Don so that he can get access to the security systems of the bank and get the printing plates for the Euro. I can forgive the financial naivete of Akhtar but how can I accept that such an influential banker will go and hand supari to someone who looks like a 3rd grade goonda last seen in the days of Mohra and Tridev or on the streets of Bandra as a mechanic turned henchman in Germany. ( dont know the actors name but lets call him JavedChikna) . So Javed Chikna will outwit Don the coolest, the most sophisticated and intelligent of all mafiosi put together. There is a scene where Javed Chikna says to his henchmen (yes even he has some international ones) ' get me Don's head' and he sounds as if he is ordering ' do cutting chai leke aana' . And the European drug cartel also is spineless as the Greeks on strike. It would have been so cool if the European cartel called on ISI or Al-Qaeda henchmen to finish Don and there is a large Indian moral dilemma for everyone just like the cheap dilemma that Kunal Kapoor has since he has promised his pregnant wife he wont hack for the wrong reasons. My word is that Kunal Kapoor should never play a hacker , he looks like a guy who has used a Rediff Chat room and not C++. Even Arjun Ramphal would have done a better job or maybe AK Hangal.
2. When you have a mafia movie or a Don movie, the interplay between various drug dealers or how you outwit them is the real meat (Stealing their maal from the docks in layman terms). By devoting so much screen time to the bank robbery especially when the police is so spineless, the movie falls into cinematic no man's land(or khichdi) and also slows it down by making the side show the real plot. If only they had shown more negotiations rather than Malikisms that abound. Malik and Om Puri kill any negotiation almost like a Deal or no Deal host.
3. Although from a writing point, there is no harm in showing Don manipulating Roma romantically to get his job done, you dont want a scene where Vardhan asks Roma to do a job that he could have done himself and wants to play on the romantic muddle in Roma's head. This is where the second half deteriorates and infuriates the audience despite the super slickness of the action , the sophistication of the attempt and the twists/doublecrossing. There was enough ammunition to avoid this angle, but again Farhan gets trapped into his own web.
Although the songs could have been better, the pulse of the background music is racy enough when it matters. As Don comes out triumphs in the last scenes and discusses his plan for the future which in other words sets up Don 3, I hope Farhan Akhtar does a major cleanup job discarding miscast actors and the inspirational DVDs he watched. The fact that you needed a Hrithik Roshan in a cameo as a Don disguise when the heights dont match nor the voice, you have taken the audience too much for granted for your indulgences . Dont forget , audience ko entertain karna mushkil hai , par naamumkin nahi.
Don 2 is a very worthy sequel , since it builds well on the first one. So Don now controls drugs in Asia ( the Thais are easy meat always for Bollywood since most of our real dons hang out there) and he wants to get to Europe. But some tapes are still with Vardhan so he needs to get him out of jail to outwit Interpol and implicate the European cartel. And to fund his new European ambitions, Don 2 needs access to the printing plates of the Euro in Germany ( wish the Greeks had contacted Don instead of Angela Merkel and Sarkozy, tch tch) . So Don has some video tape from Singhania that shows the VP of the bank murdering a potential CEO and this VP an Indian (Alyy Khan) will provide the security keys to the plates. ( There is a clever line by Don that says Indians are everywhere but I sincerely hope this has no reference to Anshu Jain the co-CEO of Deustsche Bank a guy whom every IIMite and banker holds in the highest of esteem)
So far so good. When you see the first few scenes of Don 2 , you cant help enjoy the kick that SRK getting from this movie, its adrenalin, endorphine, testosterone and stardom's ultimate cocktail and SRK wants it badly . Don is his alterego. This is why the movie works in first place since you almost root for the bad guy , and this is why SRK become a star in first place , the original Baazigar. So if you dont love this part of SRK, you will never like Don 2. And Farhan Akhtar pays the directorial ransom for this especially when he induces lines like Don saying I love love stories with tongue in cheek humour at a critical juncture and allowing SRK to spoof himself in the Roma romantic angle. But pardoning that, SRK delivers some of the coolest lines like Sir bahut shareef lagta hai call me Don with such chutzpah, that you cannot help applauding.
Despite setting a good stage , having SRK on steroids and an ultra sleek cinematographer ( I daresay i found some parts better shot than MI4) , Farhan Akhtar loses steam and sputters hunting for twists and turns that boobytrap his efforts. The main flaws are
1. If Don is the coolest guy in the world, he needs competitors of substance. Its ok if he can finish off the Thai drug mafia in a jiffy in the opening scene but as the movie progresses, the lack of real competition really irritates. So you have the Interpol Chief Malik who should have retired long ago, painfully lacking in intent and vigour with Om Puri reciting dialogues like the JKLakshmi Cement commercial. Roma as the young upstart officer is so lost not only in characterization and also in the way Priyanka plays it. Her best moment is when she wears a back less gown in the fundraiser rather than a bulletproof vest. Boman Irani never cracked Vardhan even in Don 1 and here he appears as a bored passenger of the SRK entourage. He almost provides comic relief in the climax showing how miscast he is .
But the worst part is the plot involving the deputy German bank who is being blackmailed by Don so that he can get access to the security systems of the bank and get the printing plates for the Euro. I can forgive the financial naivete of Akhtar but how can I accept that such an influential banker will go and hand supari to someone who looks like a 3rd grade goonda last seen in the days of Mohra and Tridev or on the streets of Bandra as a mechanic turned henchman in Germany. ( dont know the actors name but lets call him JavedChikna) . So Javed Chikna will outwit Don the coolest, the most sophisticated and intelligent of all mafiosi put together. There is a scene where Javed Chikna says to his henchmen (yes even he has some international ones) ' get me Don's head' and he sounds as if he is ordering ' do cutting chai leke aana' . And the European drug cartel also is spineless as the Greeks on strike. It would have been so cool if the European cartel called on ISI or Al-Qaeda henchmen to finish Don and there is a large Indian moral dilemma for everyone just like the cheap dilemma that Kunal Kapoor has since he has promised his pregnant wife he wont hack for the wrong reasons. My word is that Kunal Kapoor should never play a hacker , he looks like a guy who has used a Rediff Chat room and not C++. Even Arjun Ramphal would have done a better job or maybe AK Hangal.
2. When you have a mafia movie or a Don movie, the interplay between various drug dealers or how you outwit them is the real meat (Stealing their maal from the docks in layman terms). By devoting so much screen time to the bank robbery especially when the police is so spineless, the movie falls into cinematic no man's land(or khichdi) and also slows it down by making the side show the real plot. If only they had shown more negotiations rather than Malikisms that abound. Malik and Om Puri kill any negotiation almost like a Deal or no Deal host.
3. Although from a writing point, there is no harm in showing Don manipulating Roma romantically to get his job done, you dont want a scene where Vardhan asks Roma to do a job that he could have done himself and wants to play on the romantic muddle in Roma's head. This is where the second half deteriorates and infuriates the audience despite the super slickness of the action , the sophistication of the attempt and the twists/doublecrossing. There was enough ammunition to avoid this angle, but again Farhan gets trapped into his own web.
Although the songs could have been better, the pulse of the background music is racy enough when it matters. As Don comes out triumphs in the last scenes and discusses his plan for the future which in other words sets up Don 3, I hope Farhan Akhtar does a major cleanup job discarding miscast actors and the inspirational DVDs he watched. The fact that you needed a Hrithik Roshan in a cameo as a Don disguise when the heights dont match nor the voice, you have taken the audience too much for granted for your indulgences . Dont forget , audience ko entertain karna mushkil hai , par naamumkin nahi.
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