Well well, Don part 1 was an Indian movie, a remake of Amitabh Bachchan starrer Don with a twist in the tale, but a totally Indian flavour. This time Farhan Akhtar brought you a ’Heist Movie’ of Hollywood level in the form of Don 2. Short and sweet 2 liner - Hollywood-level movie, with still something missing, but nonetheless watchable, hmm, although looks a mixing to a viewer who watched many Heist Movies of Hollywood. If you ask me, I will suggest two movies as best ’Heist Movies’, do watch Mark Wahlberg and Jason Statham starrer ’The Italian Job’ and Denzel Washington and Clive Owen starrer ’Inside Man’, and yes you find similarities. In India, I would suggest Amitabh, Akshay, Rampal starrer ’Aankhein’, and Amitabh, Dutt, Shetty, Lucky Ali, Manjrekar starrer ’Kaante’ but both movies are Indianized version, whereas this one goes global.
Don (Shahrukh Khan) is back, and this time he wants to become Europe’s only Don, so he had to finish the European mafia, and hence he made a perfect plan, the perfect heist plan, using which he can get the money plates (which will make money for him) from a money-making Bank of Zurich, and also he can end the competition in Europe with the help of Interpol and Police. So, in this plan he ropes up his part 1 enemy Vardaan (Boman Irani), Jabbar (Nawab Shah), and Computer-hacker Sameer (Kunal Kapoor). And as usual on his trail still Roma (Priyanka Chopra) is there alongwith Det. Malik (Om Puri), and he uses Bank’s Vice-President JK Diwan (Aly Khan) by blackmailing him.
So not much of a story (Farhan Akhtar, Ameet mehta, Amrish Shah) there, as we have seen so many of heist movies, and I was sure that in climax, some twist will certainly comes like the part 1, and lo! it comes, although screenplay looks good. 1st half a little tedious, and found some boring moments in 2nd half as well. But I must say that Farhan Akhtar really pulled the movie well, as every moment the movie looked of international level, and he can surely become a competitor for Hollywood Directors. Like @viratbond said in his MS review, that Farhan just exaggerate Shahrukh’s calling-himself-king-of-bollywood style more for his character in Don 2, yes I too agree, that’s true, because only then he can do justice to the Don’s character, it is just the exaggeration of what he thinks of himself in real life. Farhan understands Shahrukh well! All the other characters acted as per the movie role demands, nothing special, nothing bad. I have a complaint too, that Farhan could make some scenes better, like the scene, where Don steal the plates, by walking on the roof upside-down, it just ended too soon, similarly escape of Don gave quite the same feeling. I wanted to see Shahrukh in his long hairs-look more, but it ended too soon! Bad! Climax is good, and that is good so that you could the movie smiling, and just the climax can give the movie atleast 0.5-1 point gain in any reviewer’s views, since it has the lasting impact on viewer. I found glimpse of ’Inside Man’ in the movie, and also of MI franchisee, as someone wants to create Ethan Hunt in Bollywood, with a -ve touch. Editing (Anand Subaya, Ritesh Soni) is okay, can be better. Locations are beautiful, carried forward from the part 1, and I must say part 2 stands a bit ahead of the predecessor. Kunal Kapoor was just used as everyone else was. The don charisma, which was there in part 1 is missing here, like it’s Don who always use to do all the work by himself, without using anybody else’s help, as you can see in Amitabh’s Don, and Sharukh’s Don, but here he depends on others like on Sameer, that was unlikely. Songs, are just timepass, and just used for the movie’s pace, nothing special to mention, although I missed the theme song, "Main Hoon Don’ that must be used as used in part 1, alongwith other references which were used here for the popularity. The background score was just okay, I climisht a glimpse of modified score from ’Sucker Punch’.
All said, but decide yourself. The movie is full masala action entertainer, and you will certainly pass your time, and you can at large enjoy the Kingsized Don, the Shahrukh Khan. If you ask me, I’ll say okay, go for it and do watch for Farhan Akhtar, my take 3/5.
GRuchirG.
Jai DON ji ki :)
PSST: What was Hrithik doing in there, he is 6" in height while Shahrukh is 5’ 8", from where Farhan get the extra height :P