Agneepath(2012) is less than Agneepath(1990)

First things first - the new Agneepath is a good watch in itself in the line of movies like Dabangg, Singham etc. The visuals are great, Rishi Kapoor delivers a great performance. Personally, I didn't find Sanjay Dutt's character menacing enough but that's a subjective take. Hrithik successfully conveys the personality of a down to earth man with vendetta as the agenda of his life. He sings and dances for commercial welfare of the movie although his character isn't expected to but that's not Hrithik the actor's doing. In any case, if we are to believe in a well toned muscular hero - with a golden heart and capable of doing unbelievable stunts, I would rather root for Hrithik or John Abraham, than someone known to be morally bankrupt like Salman Khan. The movie benefits from good music, especially one song which provides much credence to the re-union scene between Hrithik and his sister.

Praise out of the way, its the well anticipated comparison to 1990 version of Agneepath that I write about. The movie is officially termed as a tribute to the old one - pretty shrewd business tactic from Karan Johar as a producer - that is how I interpret that phrase.
The movie got all the interest and hype going for it right from the word go - just by relating it to the classic that even today is mentioned as one of Big B's best performances.

This relation and inspiration from the earlier version is what makes me look more at the negatives than the good parts. In simple terms its just the fact that Karan Malhotra is no Mukul Anand, Hrithik Roshan is good but no Amitabh Bachchan and a hit film in India means masala - actions, drama and item number.
The original was not a runaway hit but was well recieved for the performances, the subtle story play and exchanges between characters. For example -
Vijay and his mom - "apne haath dho le" - is all she says to convey her disagreement with his illegal way of life.
Vijay and Gaitondey sahib's entire family - very few words exchanged but we know what each one of them thinks about him within a few minutes of mutual glares and indirect references .
Even Vijay and Kancha Cheena - Vijay makes it clear to Kancha that he aspires to have his style and power that we as audience are already in awe of and thereby appreciate the challenge that the Hero has in front of him.

The new one unfortunately takes the route of populism, too many words and way too many stunts to convey none of the above mentioned connections. To expand on that start with the fact that it takes a good 30 -40 minutes for the new movie to establish Vijay's childhood and his mission of revenge. Despite that, I as a viewer didn't have enough sympathy for a young boy to start shooting people. Moreover, the elder Viju in this version is supposed to be loved by all and sundry despite openly being part of drugs and flesh trade.
The story doesn't say much about why anyone would love him more than their lives when all he is after is personal vendetta. There is a disconnect despite all the words used by the protagonist to explain his angst and quest for power to match Kancha's power.
The original, with Master Manjunath's portrayal of young Vijay and later Big B's kohl lined eyes and baritone voice with very few words, manages to convey the pain, touching a chord with the viewer's heart. Its only towards the end that Big B mentions his pain as a child in carrying his father's corpse alone - a few broken words that convey the scale of his physical and mental effort in doing that.
Hrithik's Vijay (actually its more of Karan Malhotra the director's Vijay) is all about using his manipulations to get clout, power and backing to get to his goal - at all costs. That's exactly what he does but pays way too much cost without any impression of having a good enough plan in mind. Any average bollywood buff would know that protecting the vulnerable maa, behan and girl friend/wife in the middle of the movie goes a long way towards ensuring a quick end. This Vijay does not know that.
For all his manipulative games and cold hearted killings, we find the new Vijay just reacting to the two Villains' attacks and almost failing at that. Given all the trump cards at his disposal - 15 years to plan, a police commissioner happily hiding his details, no general knowledge about his background ( maa, behan included) , all the power from his control over Rishi Kapoor's gang etc - this Vijay is rarely seen using any of these. The rise to power is visible but the effect is not. There isn't enough confrontation or challenge posed by Vijay to make this Kancha feel threatened. Its always the other way around.
In the end he is barely able to salvage his pride , single-handedly so to speak, which theoretically makes for a good photo finish. But if you think about it, his attack was of the sort that he could have always executed once he had the limited fireworks and muscle mass that he ultimately used and if there was ever a plan, it never materialised.
To make it worse, this Kancha was never really unapproachable or unpredictable like the original. So not as big a challenge for someone who's supposed to have mumbai in his muththi.

I guess the decision to base the story in the same time-frame as the original (early 1990s) was to avoid the obvious pitfalls for the script like a mobile or internet facility coming in the way of conceived suspense between the characters. The way this Vijay works, he could have had the best technology in the world and yet have fallen prey to a village hoodlum like Kancha.

As mentioned, its a bit too much to expect an Amitabh performance from a Hrithik. The good thing is that the team for new Agneepath knew that. He doesn't try to mimic the epic scenes from original in their entirety. When he does repeat any of the original lines, he gets some assistance from director. For instance when he repeats the famous "Vijay Deenanath Chauhan , poora naam" part, it has to be in the middle of a key fight to announce himself to his opposition and thus get some impact.
When he quotes the "Ashru shwet rakt se lathpath, lathpath" lines, there is an echo- reverb sort of effect thrown in to add to the gravitas of his voice and words with lots of background grandeur to make it big. For the original however, Mukul Anand's scene setting and Amitabh's recitation skills are all that was needed to get the impact much larger than the sum of words and visuals puts together.

Here's a bit from the original, a rather wordy part, with Vijay finally doing a check-mate sort of declaration over Kancha. The scene is from the point where Vijay is looking to turn over a new leaf and mend his illegal ways, for the sake of his family ( and family ka bachcha) rather than still carrying his father's corpse. Alas, going by the earlier mentioned logic of hindi movies, this wasn't the end of the movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDKNMliIOQY&feature=youtube_gdata_player





Final words- Do watch the new one but old is still gold.

Slammed Door Speaking

Hey, angry young man. Remember me ? I am the door you just slammed. Do you realise how much you owe me ? Of course you don't. Let me list some of my favours. There are cracks on my body and glass for each time you've crashed me against my frame. Count them and you'll realise how many times I've protected your ears by cutting off the voice you didn't want to hear. There are holes in my hinges for lack of screws, dislodged from the impact of your anger. Could very well have been the hinges of your mind getting loose and letting your sanity hang loose with it.
My handle is loose and would be in your hands next time you pull me with this ferocity. Well, better loosing my handle than you coming off yours.

So I do need some repairs, if you don't mind, to continue providing these services to you. But you do know what would be better, don't you ?
Get yourself repaired and leave me alone. After all, I'm just the physical manifestation of what you do to yourself when you see red, flip your lid off and are wreathing in anger.  And you can do better.

You don't need me to create that bang and tell everyone of your explosive mood. My panels of wood and glass are mere materials to your mental ability to cut off that angry thought. Practice and harden your mental hinges and spare mine from bearing the brunt of your displeasure.
People will pull and push your handle, test your hinges and throw you against your own being and structure. But its only YOU who can allow your screws to loosen up and leave you with a hole in your soul. Your frame and roots will only shake if YOU allow the impact to hit you.

Not sure if you've noticed but I open one way because that's how you devised and fit my hinges. Yours on the other hand, are much more flexible, if you allow them to be. Use them to just go the other way when feelings hit hard and don’t let yourself go bang against your frame.
Avoid the impact and hold on to your panels, both wooden and glass - hard and strong for those ruthless hands but transparent for those who deserve to see through you.

Take it as just another day and just another person testing the strength of your handle and hinges and screws - because you have them.  Maybe they don’t. Do not give them the joy and right to shake the very basis of your existence - your frame and roots.

And just by the way, if you think the creaking door that you slammed is talking to you - there is some damage done already to both of you ;-)

What you might not have noticed in ZNMD

People around me think "living in the moment" was the whole point of Zindagi na milegi dobara. I think that's just one of the obvious points in the movie for all to see and hear. Using stunning looking Katrina as an example to personify this message would have made sure that no man and few women would have missed this message.
I believe the movie deserves more attention than that. If you think ZNMD is just another 3 Idiots category where you enjoy the movie with one broad message, ignoring the depth of characters, my notes are not meant for you. You might as well stop reading now and thanks for reading this far.


For the brave who have continued reading, I think the message of live life now is neatly balanced in the movie through other characters.
There were quite a few subtle messages which are by now trademark Zoya Akhtar. As against Hrithik's character, the story-lines of Farhan and Abhay are more about balancing your past and future in the present rather than about the more western concept of "forget everything and live in the present". Its a shame that the writer had to place Hrithik's character in London as the one living for future and ignoring the present. Generally speaking, life in London and UK tends to be more about the present. You have ample opportunities to live it up every evening (referred to as late afternoon, making the phrase "shaam jawaan hai" seem so obsolete) , weekends and whole of December and more annual vacations per year than in US and India.
 Looking at Hrithik's character I couldn't help but remember another scene from Zoya's last movie (Luck By Chance) where Hrithik playing a superstar, lost in his stardom is almost literally trying to get in touch with his missing childhood by playing with street urchins from one side of his car's window glass. Luxury and loneliness on his side of glass, lively but poor childhood on the other side.

to start with and through most of the movie, Farhan's character in ZNMD is all about enjoying the present with a recently acquired reason to trace a selective part of his past. there is so much that one can read into his conflicting eagerness and reluctance about meeting his father. Only after confronting his biological father (Naseeruddin) does he realise that he's been a victim to his genetic instincts. One got a feeling that he knew where he was wrong, just that he had been ignoring the better judgement of his actions that was within himself  - imbibed in him through the best form of friendship and upbringing.
All this while, like his biological father, he's been 'living in the moment' and shunning responsibility for everything he does. Like his father, he wants to live cocooned in his own world of art (poetry and maybe sketching), meaningless affairs and solitude - not caring for his ageing lonely mother, not exposing his real self to his closest of friends and not really feeling bad about cheating with his friend's girlfriend. Like his father, he's been responsible just for taking care of himself and he does that well enough by balancing his creative writing with commercial writing. And just like Naseer he's aware of the ill effects of his acts of temporary excitement in present and past on the future of those who place their trust and affection in him, but he chooses not to hold himself responsible for it.

It takes him some effort to recognise the scale of responsibility that he has personally witnessed and taken for granted in the warmth and dedication that his step father would have had in his heart to bring up a step son the way he did, particularly in the Indian context. It is left for his friends who had a real or virtual fatherless childhood to point out to him the fact that he never grew up without a father. In fact he might have had a better childhood than the other two.

This is where the film's subtlety and depth of this character deserves to be admired. He's just shown contemplating and spending time with himself, without any dramatics. Just like any introvert would do. He then takes responsibility for his actions with a couple of long due heart felt apologies and takes his latest affair seriously. Just as a person of his intellect would do.  His desire to go public with his personal poems is another symbol of striking a new balance - his own private, thoughtful, brooding self  to be responsible for his public life and livelihood. Unlike Naseer, who is happy to keep his best work for accolades and creative satisfaction only. The character here delivers the message lost on many - live your life but not at the cost of others' happiness. Fun can not be at the cost of responsibility.

Abhay Deol's storyline and character appears as a bit of a let down in terms of time dedicated to it. He is the more balanced of the three - knows that commitments are to be taken seriously and yet likes to indulge in pranks with a bit of discomfort to others. He is cautious but open to adventures. Despite that, he is stuck with a more difficult tightrope challenge than the others. His situation, how so ever far fetched, does not have a simple right or wrong answer. He too, needs to look within himself and ask if what’s wrong for himself can be right for others ?
To a large extent I think the scale of this situation is  exaggerated to get him a  conflict to resolve. Given the clear headed nature of this character, he need not have let the situation come to this in the first place. Even if it did, he does appear honest and strong enough to be able to talk it out with his fiancee’ without his friends having to lecture him.

I waited a long while to get the DVD of this movie and in the end, it was worth it. Its a 5.1 surround sound version which allowed my home theatre to shine through. I got to enjoy Hrithik’s heart beat effects when he goes diving, the misplaced-but-somehow-makes-sense Saare Jahan se achcha music playing in the background when they go sky diving and all the other great sound effects.

As you might have guessed, I like sensible movies but I like it better when there is some sense to be made out of a movie. Despite the senseless Salman starring fare, Bolloywood thrives on with ZNMD.