India Masala

Agneepath: 20 years later?

More than 20 years after he first mesmerised an entire generation with his baritone and signature dialogue, Vijay Dinanath Chauhan is going to be back on celluloid, but this time in a different avatar.

Producer Karan Johar said the original film which was produced by his father didn’t “meet commercial expectations” and he thought this one would hit bull’s eye. Directed by debutant Karan Malhotra, the film stars Hrithik Roshan as Chauhan while Sanjay Dutt plays dreaded villain Kancha.

“This isn’t a remake, it is more like a tribute to the original film, which has now achieved cult status,” Johar said. At the launch of the teaser trailer on Monday, the entire cast was at pains to explain that the new “Agneepath” wasn’t a “remake” of the 1990 film, saying there were a lot of structural changes in the story.

One of those changes is that Mithun Chakraborty’s much loved Krishnan Iyer M.A. character won’t be seen afresh. Also Priyanka Chopra doesn’t play a nurse in the film and according to director Malhotra, “the only similarity is that the film begins and ends in Mandwa” (a port town near Mumbai).

After Chandra Barot’s “Don” (1978), which was re-made by Farhan Akhtar and “Umrao Jaan”, which was re-made by J P Dutta, this is the third major Bollywood film which is being looked at anew. While the first two weren’t big hits (“Umrao Jaan” wasn’t even a hit), Akhtar’s sequel to the new “Don” is one of the big releases this year, scheduled for a Christmas release.

“Agneepath” releases in January 2012, but Johar is already keen on building a buzz around the film, and says he is feeling his way around it, because he isn’t used to violence in his films.

We are Family: Pretty shallow

Before I get to talking about the film, I have one question about “We are Family” and films like it — why is it that they are invariably based in foreign countries and feature designer clothes, homes and even designer deaths?

To me, this film could well have been based in Mumbai, have had the same characters and it wouldn’t have made any difference to the story or screenplay. Even a person in the last stages of terminal illness has full make-up on.

Which is one of the biggest problems of the film — everything about it is so cosmetic, even the emotions, that it’s hard to be touched by anything. Based on the 1998 Hollywood film “Stepmom”, the only Indian-ness the script has is to insert clichés about what an ideal Indian woman should be.

Kajol plays Maya, the “ideal Indian mother” who, besides a passing reference to her job in publishing, does nothing besides fuss around her three kids. Her ex-husband Aman (Arjun Rampal) is in love with fashion designer Shreya (Kareena Kapoor) but all attempts to get his kids to like her are in vain.

When Maya discovers she has terminal cancer, Aman decides to go back to help her. Maya decides that isn’t enough and wants Shreya to help out with the kids, telling her that every Indian woman comes with a motherhood gene.

If this motherhood gene means you take your pre-teen kids to a karaoke pub, where there are people drinking alchohol and the parents are on stage dancing to ‘Jailhouse Rock’ while the kids watch, who are we to question it?

Director Sidharth Malhotra plays too safe and doesn’t explore any of the dynamics of a household that has two women fighting for a man and his children. Also, Rampal and the kids put in such a watered-down performance compared to the two women, you wonder why they are fighting for them in the first place.

My Name is Khan: Gimmicky, average cinema

There is no easy way to say this. In spite of the hype surrounding it and for all the solidarity being expressed and the many, many hours of time and energy being spent  tweeting and talking about it — “My Name is Khan” is a very average, ordinary film that goes as haywire as the debate surrounding it has gone.

Subjects such as racial biases, the aftermath of 9/11 and war on terror are dicey topics to handle in real life, let alone on celluloid, and director Karan Johar falls in the same trap as films like “New York” and his own production “Kurbaan” — he oversimplifies the issue and overstates his message.

The film tells the story of Rizwan Khan, a man afflicted with Asperger’s Syndrome, a type of autism which allows him to lead a relatively normal life. However, he has problems understanding complex issues and cannot express emotions like love or sorrow as normal people can.

Brought up in a suburb of Mumbai by his mother (Zarina Wahab), Khan moves to the U.S. after her death, to be with his brother (Jimmy Shergill).

There he meets Mandira (Kajol), an effervescent single mother, who takes an instant liking to Khan. They get married and focus on being good parents to her son Sameer.

However, when the country is hit by 9/11 and racial crime in its aftermath, their family too is shattered. Hoping to make amends, Khan sets off in search of the U.S. president, believing that if he meets him, all will be okay in his little world.

Johar is clearly out of his depth here. The film is on a large scale and beautifully shot, but the story doesn’t live up to even half of that. He cannot seem to decide whether he is making a love story, telling the story of a man’s journey or making a statement on the many biases that pervaded the U.S. after 9/11.