Originally posted by: ReldaShow me one bad review of SRK's film by Raja Sen before Ra One.
 Anushka Sharma and Shah Rukh Khan |
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The constantly stressed romantic ideal in Aditya Chopra's [Images] Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi is that you know love is for real when you see the lord (Rab himself) in another human being. Rab is also accused of being the one responsible for scripting this love story, and it is His will -- says the supplicant leading man -- as to when it starts and how it finishes.
If this indeed be the case (though it seems far likelier that Adi's palming off screenwriting blame to a higher authority), then the Almighty needs a severe lesson in economy, in being able to end a film when it should instead of far past the rightful finish line. It wouldn't be remiss either for Him to pick up a few books on plot, and realise the fact that audiences get annoyed when you pretend there's a story instead of there actually being one.
During the opening shots, the camera stutters as it pulls out of an Amritsar [Images] gurudwara, the kind of little jerk that pops regularly up in low-budget television documentaries. Considering that you're watching a massively hyped megabudget film from the most plasticky banner of all instead of a Doordarshan documentary, this is a stutter of hope. You see the camera moving from portly men on cycles to banal storefronts and you wonder: are they really going to make something earthy, something realistic, something unlike the usual gimmickry?
Three very long hours later you realise that the stutter was the movie's most honest moment.
Because honestly -- and I say this as somebody who thinks Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge is the quintessential Bollywood masterwork of the 1990s -- we really can't take one more film with a heroine begging her Raj to take her away.
Yash Raj Films has always indulged in much self-referencing, but now the oh-look-how-we-used-to-make-hits giggle has turned into a smug gloat, and it's become sickening. People get onto bikes and the Dhoom song plays, Shah Rukh Khan [Images] christens himself Raj and uses his Dil Toh Pagal Hai intro as an opener, and while there's nothing wrong with the technique per se, Adi and his directors have flogged it to death. It's as if every young director is told to look back into the YRF catalog and pick up a hit or three, and 'borrow' song or scene or dialogue or, well, plot.
And the young Mr Chopra seems trapped in the past, in the flutter of yellow dupattas and Punjabi fields. And even the Punjabiana is so darned forced. Just last week we were raving about an excellent depiction of the Punjabi milieu, but naturalism now seems alien to Aditya. Shah Rukh and buddy Vinay Pathak may have been able to act well, but are made to say 'yaara' in the middle of every blasted sentence to each other. The 'hi-ji,' 'hello-ji' sounds all right, but if everyone lays it on this thick... Well, let's just say too many kukkads spoil the broth.
Still, we go in expecting an entertainer, and the film starts off poised to deliver. Youngling Anushka Sharma [Images] looks earnest enough, an excited bride hurriedly dispensing with SRK [Images], fobbing him off with polite greetings as she runs up to inspect her trousseau. Khan, a wedding guest, fumbles nervously with a straw in his bottle of cola, as things go horribly wrong -- something foreshadowed in a very badly recorded voice-over that opens the film and never really comes back. Alas, the baraat bus has crashed, and the wedding isn't to be. This all happens in the first few frames of the movie, so one was prepared to appreciate Chopra for breezing through a section that would have formed an entire film plot for, say, Sooraj Barjatya.
Yet how little we are prepared for. Chopra's economy soon takes us into an inexplicable plot, one where... Okay, let's try and be chronological. Shah Rukh the Square marries young Taani. It is the honourable thing to do, he feels as he bumbles around and takes his personals up into the attic, leaving her on a four poster bed with one pillow and all the privacy she can ask for. Yet she doesn't love him and -- without going into details, really -- this apparently necessitates a makeover for SRK.
Khan himself doesn't do too badly. Granted, the first few minutes of him trying to be all geeky come across as Irrfan Khan [Images] doing a bad Amol Palekar impression, but he improves drastically and manages to bestow the character with -- if not heart -- at least a general likeability. This is no small ask when this introverted clerk turns kewl at the drop of a hat, and suddenly becomes the filmiest stud in the world.
There is no progression to his metamorphosis, not even an awkward fumbling. No, to be fair, there is actually a great moment when SRK post-makeover stands and fidgets nervously, grapples with his jeans and wonders how to walk the cool walk -- but it's a scene that dissolves into nothingness as he reminds himself that he's now cool, and cool he becomes. Snap those fingers, baby.
Still, it is a fun performance, albeit in fits and starts, and those moments we spoke of are clearly all conjured up by him.
There are several such moments -- including a neat scene with SRK talking to a mannequin wearing his clothes -- but each of them overstays its welcome, turning into a longdrawn and obvious explanation of the characters and their motivation. Heck, this'd be a much improved film if every single one of the characters didn't talk to themselves. And lets not even mention the background score or the way the characters are reflected in a painting, painfully Mohabbatein -- except its Guru Nanak in the frame this time.
Anushka does well, but this is an out-and-out SRK film, which negates her role significantly. She has a nice smile and clearly looks Punjabi enough, and is adequate in a wholesome, television-actress sort of way. Her character gets to be equal parts plucky and melancholy, but the writing is so obvious that this isn't the kind of role that could challenge the debutante.
The first half of the film seems somewhat alright, though I'd love an explanation on how a woman besotted with a certain man not just imagines him on screen in a romantic medley, but sees him dance with a string of Bollywood heroines instead of herself. The second half of the film sees a lot of the aforementioned Rab-invoking, with much talk of divinity and love. And as you yawn through the last half hour -- wherein lies the Rab -- you realise that the entire makeover device, which masquerades as the plot of the film, was completely unnecessary, and all the hero needed to do was take her to the temple a few more times. And a redundant plot is as unforgivable as it gets.
Mr Chopra, you make a lot more money than I ever will, but I'll still take this opportunity to throw up some basic, unsolicited suggestions: ask Farah Khan [Images] how to deal with movies-within-movies and have fun; ask Dibakar Banerjee for some help with realistic-sounding accents and dialects; ask Shirish Kunder or Farhan Akhtar [Images] for advice on creating geeky, square guys who stay in character instead of breaking it as soon as a song starts.
Just make a film that doesn't feel over a decade old.
And hey, please get over DDLJ. Before you get us to start disliking that fantastic film.
Rediff Rating: 
Originally posted by: kshreya2002
Till the age of Salman most of the critics loved SRK. Ever since someone else has beaten him at the BO they all love to trash him too.
| Don 2 Has 80% All India First Day Opening
Friday 23rd December 2011 15.30 IST | |
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Boxofficeindia.Com Trade Network
Don 2 has opened to an 80% response on an all India basis. The multiplex opening is 80-85% while single screens on average are 70-75%. West Bengal has opened very strongly with collections at multiplexes and single screens 90% plus from the first show. Theatres like Big and Paradise were house full from first show. Overall it is a very good opening at multiplexes and good at single screens
North India is super strong at some centres but others being around 70%. Delhi NCR is very good while Punjab is good but many stations of UP are lower Rajasthan had a good opening while the CI and Bihar saw the lowest opening as B and C centre single screens in these circuits were 40-60% and these circuits are full of these type of centres. South India should also have a good first day especially Mysore. |
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The evening shows at multiplexes are showing good bookings at big centre multiplexes but the early public reorts are mixed. | |
Director: Farhan Akhtar
Cast: Shah Rukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Boman Irani
By the time it dawns on you that a 6-feet contemporary Bollywood actor
(in a cameo) has been passed off as the unabridged undercover for Shah
Rukh Khan's Don in the film, you are expected to be equipped for many
more of such cinematic liberties. And rather than crying a spoiler
there, you could rather preset your logic mode to the multiple
masquerades in store in the movie.
Don 2, the sequel
starts off almost from where the earlier episode ended and while it
attempts to maintain some continuity with the last installment, it fails
to bring back the intelligence of the original. Don (Shah Rukh Khan)
emerges in Malaysia and gets himself arrested only to get the convicted
Vardhan (Boman Irani) out of jail. Vardhan has keys to a video footage
which they use to blackmail a bank vice president (Alyy Khan) to get
access to a German bank's security systems. The big plan is the
old-fashioned and formulaic robbery of the currency printing plates from
the bank. So the sequel to Don merely boils down to being a heist film.
The film, more or less, starts as an action flick with Don's
one-man-army introduction in Thailand, a convenient escape from
Malaysian prison and some conventional car-chase sequences in Germany.
None of them excite much until you realize you have already reached the
interval. The plotting and scheming starts in the second half with an
easy induction of a hacker (Kunal Kapoor) who can not only barge into
the security systems of the vault but also seems to have blueprints of
the bank building to the minutest details.
The writing by Ameet Mehta, Amrish Shah and Farhan Akhtar
is more style over substance attempting to camouflage cliches with the
cool quotient. Even the central heist seems confusing and convoluted but
Farhan Akhtar intentionally keeps the pacing swift enough, leaving no
time for the viewer to notice any loose ends. However, the more he makes
the situation easy to suit his script, the more it becomes difficult
for the audience to digest things.
Even the robbery seems
mundane Hollywoodish exercise with no moments of thrills in particular.
However the highlight isn't the heist per se but Don's hidden agenda
behind it. While it isn't much difficult to decode the mystery, it makes
for a decent climax. The director mercifully keeps mush away from the
major proceedings though he can't resist the temptation in the climactic
portion in his attempts to induce chemistry between Don and his rival,
Roma (Priyanka Chopra). But Don would have been better-off as the suave
and stonyhearted killer rather than a 'Rahul' prototype. Thankfully the
chemistry is peripheral and never blooms into romance.
Also one
would have preferred to see Don as more brain over brawny hero but the
director makes him a jack of all trades giving him James Bond
kinda complete-man characteristics. Vulnerability is alien to Don,
essentially making him larger-than-life. But despite being an unethical
drug-lord, Farhan Akhtar's treatment is such that you still adore him as
the hero over abhorring him as an outright villain. Don 2 never gets into the good v/s evil battle.
The cinematography by Jason West is striking. However
Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy's musical score doesn't leave a mark this time and
the background score has to repeatedly resort to the theme-piece from
the original for some impact. Farhan Akhtar's punch-lines in dialogues
are initially amusing but with a Don-ism in every second line, it sounds
hackneyed and hollow after a point.
Shah Rukh Khan
is in his comfort zone as the Don bringing more charm than cruelty to
his character. He rules supreme and the film's indulgence with him is as
much as Don's obsession with himself. Everyone else is overshadowed. Priyanka Chopra is passable. Lara Dutta, as the Don's moll, is simply a substitute for Isha Koppikhar from the prequel and is hardly there for a few scenes. Boman Irani is underused. Kunal Kapoor fails to register any impact. Om Puri, Alyy Khan and Nawab Shah are plain functional. Sahil Shroff irritates.
Don 2 ends with the promise of Don 3 (that's what the number-plate of Don's bike reads) and the trademark dialogue 'Don ko pakadna mushkil hi nahi, namumkim hai'
(It's not just difficult to catch don, it's impossible). But we would
surely want to 'catch' up with a more worthy sequel to this. It's not
impossible Farhan. Is it?
Verdict: Above Average
Originally posted by: --ania--Why do we always demand good music/songs from BWood movies? Do we expect the same from Hollywood movies? Then, the same ppl claim 'oh that was a copy of this hollywood movie and that'...double standards much?!?
Originally posted by: --ania--
I think that reviews can be biased a lot of times. I went throught his other SRK reviews like for MNIK and OSO...he seemed to praise SRK and relate the storylines to hollywood biggies and classics...now that you look at his recent two reviews, it shows that he may just have a set mind to critically assess every detail of the movie. What I'm saying is, most of the reviewers like Raja or Taran don't seem to view and critique films from a neutral stand.
Black leather, black humour
Film: Don 2
Director: Farhan Akhtar
Starring: Shah Rukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra
Yours, I believe, says Shah Rukh Khan, carrying an inert Priyanka Chopra and handing her over to the new kid on the block, Sahil Shroff. The movie seems to have been made only to allow the actor to say and do all the things he ever wanted, be it a James Bond and Ethan Hunt rolled into one. What it does come across as finally is a Mission Impossible meets Abbas Mustan.
I have nothing against either except that it is instantaneously forgettable. This is the kind of film-making that urges you to watch and forget. The plot is easy, based mostly in Berlin only so the actors can wear lots of smart black overcoats, Gucci vests and leather boots. There are enough twists and turns that require the actors to drive cars at breakneck speed, jump from buildings, crawl into confined spaces, and look superlatively cool while doing so. Priyanka Chopra gets to keep her indecipherable New York meets Mumbai accent while playing an Interpol agent based out of Kuala Lumpur, Khan gets to play bad, and Boman Irani gets to clench his teeth in all manner of sinister ways that belie his teddy bear image.
In short, everyone gets to do what they feel like. Farhan Akhtar directs but only in a manner of speaking. This is a film by the numbers, a lark, a little game of let's-look-cool-with-all-manner-of-guns-shall-we? As someone once said so famously of Ocean's Eleven, it's not a film so much as a luxury experience. With Khan's usual wit-Priyanka puts him in handcuffs and he says to her: Hmm, kinky? Or the police finally get him, and surround him, and he says, No autographs please. I suspect most of the lines were written by Khan himself.
There are a lot of inside jokes. Khan saying I like love stories and
smiling wickedly when he says so. The characteristics of Don continue-he
continues to watch Tom and Jerry and laugh. He loves jungle billi
Priyanka Chopra. And Lara Dutta's character Ayesha continues to be
jealous of her. Clearly since Ra.One Khan is on a mission to
prove to Hollywood that we can make movies in their genre as well as
they can. The streets look the same, the buildings actors jump off look
the same (nothing to beat Tom Cruise jumping off Burj Al Arab though)
and even the parties look as sophisticated. There are no wedding songs
and no karva chauths. And certainly no songs shot in Switzerland.
But
it is also curiously generic. It's the kind of film that could star Tom
Cruise and that may not necessarily be a compliment. And
ironically-ironic because Khan is so keen to be taken seriously as an
anti-hero -it comes to life when he decides to be good for a while.
Don 2 - Movie Review | |||||||||
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Cast: Shah Rukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Kunal Kapoor, Lara Dutta, Om Puri and Boman Irani Director: Farhan Akhtar Stars: ** 1/2 Action/Thriller: U/A Pic/Santa Banta It's time for the SRK fans to go weak in the knees again. The superstar's back. And those of you who went away after RA.One, come back, it's the season to forgive and forget. Shah Rukh Khan manages to look super cool and super hot as he easily reclaims his King Khan position with that stylish swagger, that cocky married-to-mischief grin and his trademark arms thrown wide open gesture. Almost making us believe that no one else could have played the bad man's role with more conviction. Only if the same conviction was visible in the script, direction and the film as a whole. The film is slick, the cinematography (Jason West) is captivating ...but the racy, edge of the seat pace that you expect from an action thriller of this kind is sorely missing. And that's not all. The script apart from being predictable also has loopholes galore. The characters are sketchey. In this sequel Don decides to get his old foe Vardhaan (Boman Irani) to help him with a heist in a Bank in Berlin. The investigators Roma (Priyanka Chopra) and her senior Malik (Om Puri) are still on his trail and looking at the amazing dumbness that they flaunt, doesn't look like they will ever get him, even in Don 14. While Roma walks around in strictly business kind clothes and hair do (the strands behave themselves even when Roma is doing action sequences in the climax), disappointingly her character turns out to be of someone who's waiting for an opportunity to melt in the arms of her Prince Charming. Malik's character unwittingly calls for sympathy. Malik is just about to retire (with good reason) before he's dragged into Don's mess again. Puri seems so lost that his best dialogue seems to be when he announces to the world 'It's Don' in amazement on receiving Don's call. Even the ever-dependable Boman Irani disappoints with his forced expressions. There's one thing that irks me the most in Bollywood action thrillers, and Don 2 carries the tradition. The smart moves by the characters is tediously explained again and again to show how the move was engineered, thereby diluting the whole effect. The audience is treated like a four-year-old brat, who doesn't concentrate and forgets what has been told to him five minutes back. Subtlety is an art and moreover, we are not as dumb as you think. Wish the filmmakers instead concentrated on filling those gaping loopholes. But I strongly recommend that you watch this one, solely to experience the Shah Rukh Khan-charisma once again. |
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