Farhan misses his Lakhsya again. Review on Don: The Chase Begins Again

Let us make one thing clear in the beginning. The Don of Farhan Akhtar is not a remake. It is better to review it as an independent movie than get entangled in the task of comparing it with a different movie of a different era. The language and soul of the new Don is absolutely entrenched in the present and has no link with the past.

As a movie it is good in parts but does not impress me in totality. The story chosen by the Director is the first stumbling block. The evil Don replaced by a simpleton and being chased by all and sundry is done to death in movies. The convoluted motives behind Priyanka and Arjun’s characters just do not go with the treatment and mood of the film. Farhan could have made a better movie if he had not chosen to build his movie on the skeleton of the old Don. The twist in the tale at the end also does not create the desired effect. Audience will decribe it as a gimmick rather than a clever ploy.

The first half where the director was busy trying to establish the character of the Don is the weakest part of the movie. The characters or shall I say satellites surrounding the Don persona appear and disappear as glorified caricatures. Convincing Kareena to do the Helen number seem to be the greatest con job of this century. In descending order my heartfelt sympathies goes to Kareena, Sushma Reddy, Pavan Malhotra, Isha Koppikar , Chunky Pandey, Om Puri and Arjun Ramphal. I am sure all of them were hoping that a Farhan Akhtar movie cannot go wrong and all of them will get noticed. Wrong move friends and Farhan should better apologise.

So why is this movie still able to draw people? Well Shahrukh Khan is the obvious and only reason. His performance was adequately nuanced to bring in the initial crowd. My only grouse is that Mr Khan is so engrossed in his antics that the craft of acting is sacrificed in the altar of playacting. He never gets into the skin of his characters. In fact the characters appear like Shahrukh trying out a few masks where the audience know that beneath the mask it is really our hero.

Boman Irani as Vardhan in the movie is awesome. The screen brightens up whenever Mr Irani is around. I am always watching him closely so that I do not miss out a twitch or a trick that Boman have under his sleeve. One star in the rating for this movie is added only because of Boman.

Apart from the title song, where Shaan adds the requisite touch of drama and arrogance, rest of the music is a big letdown. The Yeh Mera Dil and Khaike paan are basically remixed versions and never sounded ambitious enough to surpass the original songs. The new songs are all mediocre and is a black mark for SEL. I was specially disappointed with the background score as it seems to follow a standard uniform pattern without any relevance to the scenes. The choreography of the songs also strike a discordant note except for the Khaike number (thanks to Saroj Khan).

Farhan need to a reality check before he chooses his next script. He is definitely capable of doing better stuff but the right script is eluding him after DCH. I am sure he worked hard on the look of Don and wanted to make a style statement. Unfortunately style without content and clarity of thought doesl not help the cause of the movie.

Don entertains to a certain limit but the contradiction between the director’s sensibility and the original Don is what makes the exercise futile.