The first five minutes of Farhan Akhtar's shiny new flick "Don 2" is lists of media partners, brand partners, and other partners against a black screen, so one gauges there is going to be a vast amount of product placement. Then follow the names of German funding entities, and we realize that this is a German-Indian co-production—it's cool that Germany has taken to investing in Indian enterprises and offering tax incentives to film in the Fatherland. At that point, an impatient Sardarji yelled out in the dark: "Oy, that's enough – let's balle balle!" to much laughter in the house. Then the film began and for the next two hours raced at breakneck speed, pausing briefly every few minutes to blow something up.
I skipped Farhan Akhtar's remake of the 1978 hit Don with Amitabh Bachchan and Zeenat Aman – why bother with it when the original is still kicking around? Don 2 is advertised as an original work – that's what attracted me. However, out of curiosity, I did look up the song done by Kareena Kapoor on YouTube, and, yup, Helen needn't spare a second thought about anybody wresting that "Peerless Danseuse of the Hindi Screen" title away from her. Poor Kareena, in her pudgy phase then, tried hard but didn't even come close to what Ms. Richardson so effortlessly gave us back in '78. Akhtar appears to have altered something in his remake, for when the sequel opens, the good Don is nowhere to be seen; the bad Don is still alive, having a blast, and now wreaking havoc around the world. He's gone global. Avenging angel Roma—the Zeenat Aman character—traipses in his wake, always a moment too late on the uptake and the crime scene. She's been given a hunky subordinate who throws her melting looks and frisks after her like an adorable puppy. Whenever tough chick Roma (Priyanka Chopra) girds her loins to do battle with Don (a full-time occupation for the entire police forces of India, Malaysia, Germany, perhaps Switzerland, too), he acts touchingly solicitous. In one of the twists in the tale, when Roma has to go on a rescue mission with Don, loverboy gets to snarl at Shah Rukh, "If anything happens to her " and doesn't even complete the threat. Really, little man, really?
Shah Rukh has great fun striding around with a bad ass attitude, many tattoos, and in the first part of the film, designer stubble and a hybrid coif that's part corn-rows, part dreads—and excuse my saying—part greasy and unwashed. Still, he's Shah Rukh, and can pull off anything. He's a lean mean fighting machine, and for reasons known only to him, allows himself to be arrested by Roma and incarcerated in a chic Malaysian prison. There's not a trace of grittiness—the prison has a jolly orange and crisp white color scheme and looks practically wholesome. Good old Boman Irani playing a mean baddie Vardhaan, who impersonated an Interpol officer in the original, is Shah Rukh's prison mate. However nasty Boman tries to be, I always feel he'll revert to comedy mode, and cackle "Fooled you - just kidding!" Vardhaan and Don have a balletic knife fight, then break out of prison together, and team up to relieve the German Central Bank of its Euro printing plates. Why mess with small-time labor-intensive activities like running international drug cartels, when you can just print your own cash supply without offering anything in return!
Don is baddest guy on the block, but loses a little of his street cred and edge, when recently sprung from prison, he reunites with his new honey/admin assistant Ayesha ( a slinky sophisticated Lara Dutta) and a number of sexy girl and boy henchmen (henchpeople?) in a Vegas-style synchronized song-and-dance routine, which would have called for weeks of rehearsal. Uh-huh, that's exactly what the most dangerous criminal in the world would do to strike fear in the hearts of opponents. The jokey vibe persists through innumerable convoluted cons and double cons, crosses and double-crosses. It's engaging and fast moving, and whenever your attention wanders – wait, who's conning whom now? – there's an explosion to jolt you out of your reverie.
Everyone tries to out-do Don, but Shah Rukh always has the last laugh, delivers cheesy lines with panache, and demonstrates that sheer star power can transcend utter improbability. There are fights aplenty, matched with an abundance of shameless product placement: gangs of baddies and battalions of S.W.A.T. teams routinely synchronize watches, giving us 70mm close-ups of Tag Heuer time pieces; breathless chases with Hyundai, BMW, and Mercedes cars (a vehicle for every price point, you see) proving their endurance and longevity; and designer duds, jewelery, and sunglasses from various fashion houses schilled by Shah Rukh, Priyanka, and Lara.
This is a well-crafted popcorn flick, with excellent cinematography (Jason West doing his best work), slick editing (Anand Subaya), and world-class stunts and chases – Farhan Akhtar owes much to the Bourne and Bond series, for there is a similarity of look, feel, and pace. Apart from looking stern and indomitable (Priyanka) and smart, sexy, and efficient (Lara), the women don't have a lot to do. Kunal Kapoor is effective as a computer hacker brought in for the heist, but only gets to Tazer a single guy – Shah Rukh deals with everybody else in every single country we visit in the course of the flick.
Okay, Shah Rukh, we've humored you and ponied up our $$$ for Ra-One and Don 2; now we need a good ol' fashioned grown-up love-story from you, before Farhan Akhtar lobs Don 3, 4, & 5 like grenades at us.
I skipped Farhan Akhtar's remake of the 1978 hit Don with Amitabh Bachchan and Zeenat Aman – why bother with it when the original is still kicking around? Don 2 is advertised as an original work – that's what attracted me. However, out of curiosity, I did look up the song done by Kareena Kapoor on YouTube, and, yup, Helen needn't spare a second thought about anybody wresting that "Peerless Danseuse of the Hindi Screen" title away from her. Poor Kareena, in her pudgy phase then, tried hard but didn't even come close to what Ms. Richardson so effortlessly gave us back in '78. Akhtar appears to have altered something in his remake, for when the sequel opens, the good Don is nowhere to be seen; the bad Don is still alive, having a blast, and now wreaking havoc around the world. He's gone global. Avenging angel Roma—the Zeenat Aman character—traipses in his wake, always a moment too late on the uptake and the crime scene. She's been given a hunky subordinate who throws her melting looks and frisks after her like an adorable puppy. Whenever tough chick Roma (Priyanka Chopra) girds her loins to do battle with Don (a full-time occupation for the entire police forces of India, Malaysia, Germany, perhaps Switzerland, too), he acts touchingly solicitous. In one of the twists in the tale, when Roma has to go on a rescue mission with Don, loverboy gets to snarl at Shah Rukh, "If anything happens to her " and doesn't even complete the threat. Really, little man, really?
Shah Rukh has great fun striding around with a bad ass attitude, many tattoos, and in the first part of the film, designer stubble and a hybrid coif that's part corn-rows, part dreads—and excuse my saying—part greasy and unwashed. Still, he's Shah Rukh, and can pull off anything. He's a lean mean fighting machine, and for reasons known only to him, allows himself to be arrested by Roma and incarcerated in a chic Malaysian prison. There's not a trace of grittiness—the prison has a jolly orange and crisp white color scheme and looks practically wholesome. Good old Boman Irani playing a mean baddie Vardhaan, who impersonated an Interpol officer in the original, is Shah Rukh's prison mate. However nasty Boman tries to be, I always feel he'll revert to comedy mode, and cackle "Fooled you - just kidding!" Vardhaan and Don have a balletic knife fight, then break out of prison together, and team up to relieve the German Central Bank of its Euro printing plates. Why mess with small-time labor-intensive activities like running international drug cartels, when you can just print your own cash supply without offering anything in return!
Don is baddest guy on the block, but loses a little of his street cred and edge, when recently sprung from prison, he reunites with his new honey/admin assistant Ayesha ( a slinky sophisticated Lara Dutta) and a number of sexy girl and boy henchmen (henchpeople?) in a Vegas-style synchronized song-and-dance routine, which would have called for weeks of rehearsal. Uh-huh, that's exactly what the most dangerous criminal in the world would do to strike fear in the hearts of opponents. The jokey vibe persists through innumerable convoluted cons and double cons, crosses and double-crosses. It's engaging and fast moving, and whenever your attention wanders – wait, who's conning whom now? – there's an explosion to jolt you out of your reverie.
Everyone tries to out-do Don, but Shah Rukh always has the last laugh, delivers cheesy lines with panache, and demonstrates that sheer star power can transcend utter improbability. There are fights aplenty, matched with an abundance of shameless product placement: gangs of baddies and battalions of S.W.A.T. teams routinely synchronize watches, giving us 70mm close-ups of Tag Heuer time pieces; breathless chases with Hyundai, BMW, and Mercedes cars (a vehicle for every price point, you see) proving their endurance and longevity; and designer duds, jewelery, and sunglasses from various fashion houses schilled by Shah Rukh, Priyanka, and Lara.
This is a well-crafted popcorn flick, with excellent cinematography (Jason West doing his best work), slick editing (Anand Subaya), and world-class stunts and chases – Farhan Akhtar owes much to the Bourne and Bond series, for there is a similarity of look, feel, and pace. Apart from looking stern and indomitable (Priyanka) and smart, sexy, and efficient (Lara), the women don't have a lot to do. Kunal Kapoor is effective as a computer hacker brought in for the heist, but only gets to Tazer a single guy – Shah Rukh deals with everybody else in every single country we visit in the course of the flick.
Okay, Shah Rukh, we've humored you and ponied up our $$$ for Ra-One and Don 2; now we need a good ol' fashioned grown-up love-story from you, before Farhan Akhtar lobs Don 3, 4, & 5 like grenades at us.