Don & Dor

I have taken time, as I wasn’t sure. It is nearing a week since I saw these two fantastic movies. I have been thinking on and off about them. There are two parameters of evaluating the success of any work of art, anything at all. How much do the masses like it, and how good the movie is. Well I guess there is more to it, and that is where I come to Don. The movie was entertaining though the story was juvenile, maybe because I already knew the story.

I enjoyed the movie Don, as I had told myself I am going to. You wait for two years for a Farhan Akhtar movie to come out; you will not take disappointment for an experience. Since I had heard there were mixed reviews of the movie I prepared myself to see the good parts only, zero on them and then don’t lose focus. How can you not enjoy the movie? What about SRK? Well that I have been brainwashing myself for a long time now, I guess more than a year no since I heard that he is going to be the Don. And once the trailers hit the screen, I guess that’s where my blindness started visibly hiking.

I remember, the memory is faded, thanks to my self triggered brainwashing. I remember disliking the trailers in the beginning, yes and I think I can coax out more memories. Lets see yes there is one more; of a highly opinionated person telling me the trailers look horrible, and I blocking all those voices out. The Farhan chant starts in my brain; yes no one tells me Farhan Akhtar churns out a bad movie, no one. The chants float around in my brain. I am submerged whole heartedly. I am eager, I am on my knees waiting to be delivered.

So finally I am sitting in the hall on a weekday, it was only possibility of getting a ticket, the good thing is it costs 50 bucks less on a weekday. Well they could have kept those 50 bucks as well, as for half an hour we were tortured with ads. No exaggeration in the previous statement. Enough you imbecile, it is about Don not PVRs desperate money making schemes. So the movie starts, suave paris, suavely dressed shahrukh who pays 20 euros for a cup of coffee. Nice, cool. Drives through Paris, sorry driven through Paris. Then the movie continues slick is one move after the other. Its not loud, not it is slick, its not boring, no it is, well entertaining.

Now as to where to place the movie, I will go in the order of appearance. The Kareena K song seemed to be rudely in bad taste. If you are going for a more realistic touch, you don’t want the girl to dance, then so be it, but looks like electricity courses thorugh her vein and makes her shake and tremble uncontrollably. Or if you want her to dance, teach her to dance, or get somebody who can dance. Poor Kareena, I feel she has really come up well as an actress (wonderful in Omkara) even the anger of the character comes out well in the brief scenes she has. So why am I cribbing about a mere song, because when you make a song dance movie, then the song dance take 50% onus of making the movie a success.

Speaking of song dance, I just loved the two party songs, especially “Main hoon Don”. They were fantastic. Let’s talk about action. Well we are still imitators; we are still aping what Hollywood had achieved decades back. The level is better than usual bollywood stuff, but nothing original. We put all that we have seen in other movies in this one. It feels nice to have Indians doing all those stunts, its fun. Yeah our heroes skydive too, fight mid-air. But, they don’t do anything that hasn’t already been done in the movies of the Hollywood. Don is not the first to try to get at par with the world when it comes to car chases, but it just reaffirms the push to the standard. It makes Don looklike a wannabe James Bond. The car chases, the fights nothing is riveting enough. I was just cheering a kid on his attempt to bring it out, being a very sympathetic audience. Patronising.

The commendable part about the movie is the number of characters which have been thrown to move the movie forward, rather you can see, plot point one gone, bring the next character in, then the next. “Sir, I have run out characters”. Fine, give the existing character another shade, a darker side. One character which falls comically short of expectations is De Silva, Boman Irani fails miserably to give the cop feel.

For that matter the first scene where the cops are standing holding coffee cups, looking at Ramesh’s body. Om Puri and Boman Irani’s first conversation makes me feel as if I am witnessing all this on the sets. Translated, the scene seems so plastic. The intended suaveness is falling flat for our chief cops.

How do I sum it in one, I see it in fragments, the flaws and the efforts which went waste. The story was plain silly story, where its so bollywoodish in making. Don’s story is cent per cent meant only for screen, it cant be anything else. Every character can exist nowhere but on Bollywood screen. This is not a movie which will appeal to you for its freshness, for its insight or empathy for a character. This is not what the previous two Farhan Akhtar movies did to me. I loved them so much; they were so surreal to me, in terms of everything that I guess I was expecting another sensational revelation. But, I guess this time this guy just decided to let his hair down, and indulge.

I enjoyed the movie, but it didn’t have the pounce and the force with which the previous two movies had grabbed me. I didn’t get bored when the movie was playing. It is just when I came back I realized, I felt pretty empty handed over the days. The delight and pleasure I experienced in revisting Lakshya in my head and on screen was missing. Don was entertaining; I hope I will grow to love it, but that’s a foolish hope, as I have nothing to savor now.

I was so dying for Lakshya experience to happen again. To me Lakshya stood bold and proud above all Indian movies. It had cleared the slate of pretentious melodramatic assembly of war movies. To me there is only one Indian army movie to be spoken of.

When I had come back from Lakshya I was rattling off to various people I met, especially one person in particular the nuances of the film. I was happy with Don. I said, “Oh it was lovely”. But I had run out of words. I enjoyed the movie that was to it. And, I guess that was all there was intended to become of it. After all it was Don, cop-robber story which can fascinate the minds for centuries to come, just keep adding twists in the end till it becomes twisted.

I am not disappointed with Don, I have just revised my expectations. What else could I have expected from Don. Don was supposed to be a nice popcorn flick, blockbuster. And I guess that is what it was aimed to be. Why did I imagine something new to happen? Sigh ! :-(


As for Dor. Frankly I was not even considering viewing it. Again maybe I have a lot to learn. This I guess is too early in the career of these directos to think you know what they have to deliver. Before anyone, before any other director there was Nagesh Kukunoor. I wanted to be him. I loved him for Bolllywood Calling. I know people would hail Hyderabd Blues and RockFord as better examples of his ingenuity. To me Kukunoor ruled because he bashed up everything bollywood that I hated, and that is so much in face and still the masses enjoy it and classify as light hearted Indian comedies.

Teen Deewarein was great. Then there was Iqbal. Then Farhan came with Lakshya. I pushed Kukunoor hands down to the second spot. I have another to worship. I guess part of the reason was Iqbal. It scared me, I know it was great, the storytelling was more smoothed out than ever. There was nice music, beautiful backdrops thrown in once a while. The mother-daughter pair as well as the village setting. But I had to hate it by end, it reeked of stereotypical bad guy. Somehow ending was so rushed through and predictable. I am not against happing endings, or bad guy vs. good guy thing but I hate in your face storytelling. The biggest reason of it all was I thought there was nothing new here, to me that was death of what kukunoor stood for. I might as well go back to not looking at Indian movies with any expectation.

Then someone over the last weekend told me how different Dor was. I could not agree more with her. She was right. She said this is the first Hindi film to be made having women as the central character. There are sometimes stories which happen to women also and they generally bring in an unexplored fresh angle, mostly internal conflicts. Conflicts with society.

This movie does have some social bearings, but it is such a delight to see them delivered subtly. I am always scared that whenever there is a social evil to be brought to light, the bollywood directors take the easy way out. You have somebody in the cast get up, choking with sentiment, depicted through red eyes or moist eyes or steely eyes or flaring noses or raised finger. Everybody stands still and listens to the monologue waiting for him/her to conclude.

The compositions were beautiful. The landscapes of Rajasthan and the north are beautifully transported to the screen. So many frames are just sitting in my mind as picture postcards.

The strength of the movie lies in the fact that it hasn’t given in to the usual stereoypes in our popular cinema. The supporting cast except for Shreyas character is there only for the purpose they are, not to hog the screenspace unnecessarily. There is no fear that our filmmakers seem to be paralyzed with. The fear that works against giving due attention to the prime characters, rest should fall around it.

The movie leaves nothing to be desired. It satisfies with its placid sweet natured maturity of the story and the story-telling as well as delights with the reserved understanding it offers to every character.