Inevitable Comparisons
As Don, Amitabh had a certain grace; his calmness carried a certain menace. It was cool to watch him. It is, even now! As Vijay, Amitabh was as righteous as the typical ‘hero’ of that era. But on the whole, Don was never a classic. It was indeed a masala flick which somehow clicked. As Don, SRK is disgracefully cool; his showy mannerisms carry the same menace (or probably more). It is flinching to watch him. As Vijay, SRK is as comical and silly as any righteous person would appear in today’s overtly cynical world. On the whole, today’s Don is a darker version of the old one. Even today’s Don is no classic. But, for technical reasons, it’s definitely a benchmark for Indian cinema; the action sequences, stunts, graphics, slick look, dialogues and of course performances.
Performances
The best of the lot is of course Boman Irani. Is he the sameguy who irritated us ‘Home Delivery’? Well, even the best of actor’s need agood director to show case talent. As ‘De Silva’ alias ‘Vardhan’, Boman is superb. It is quite a short role for ‘Om Puri’; yet another veteran who did not fail to deliver. For the first time, ‘Arjun Rampal’ is bearable. Priyanka is composed, confident and cool. Isha’s role is very, very short. Don’s character styling is a mix of ‘Nicolas Cage’ of‘Face/Off’ and ‘John Travolta’ of ‘Broken Arrow’. The audiences have to accept that this Don is not the realistic don of ‘Company’. Here the evil has to be overpowering and forceful. SRK does it in his own odd style. Fairly brilliant performance! It works both like a gift and a curse. ;) Can’t say anything more!
Bottlenecks
It’s slow. Most characters are established by sacrificing lot of screen time! Though decent, songs are not that good. The new ‘Kaike Paan’ isn’t a chart buster.Most of the characters are grey, the rest are pitch black and Evil wins in the end! Finally, the unfortunate liabilities of casting currently disapproved super star Shah Rukh Khan!
Interesting Points
Logically SRK as Vijay is there only for 5 minutes and asong. So, are the inconsistencies in the village dialect and other mannerisms deliberate? Particularly during action scenes, for example the car chase, we see that ‘Vijay acting as Don’ has suddenly become far too violent and focused.He becomes sharp, his gaze (when angry) is as piercing as Don’s and even his English suddenly improves. But, the end justifies it all. Vijay acting as Don was never Vijay but Don himself. The apparent nuances like the ones listed below makesense once the climax unfolds.
-The secret code that De Silva presses to open the hospital door is distinctly shown from the line of vision of Don lying in bed.
-The scene which shows Don having a seizure, a shot focuses on his wide open eyes! Those are actually Vijay’s final moments
- When Don calls De’Silva leaks some info to, a Tom and Jerry video runs in the background (Even Vijay likes Tom and Jerry?)
-When Roma tries to kill Don, he would have killed her had De’ Silva not entered in
-Don doesn’t actually recognize Deepu in School. It’s Deepu who runs to him. Then he says “Haan, tumhaare Vijay chacha sach mein badalgaye hain”.
-After escaping from the air craft Don wants to clear the mess just to get the disc in hand
-When Anita says “Darling, Aaj Vijay Ki Zindagi Ka Aakhri Din Hoga!” she means from that day Don will stop acting as Vijay
-The climax meeting with ‘Vardhan’ was only to eliminate competition from the arch rival
-What Don says to ‘Vardhan’ before handing him over toPolice (I forgot the exact way it goes)
Conclusion
Scenes are the same, some of the dialogues are the same, but the story is drastically different. The old elegantly poised, silently charismatic criminal has been changed to a coolly ruthless, smoothly cunning scoundrel with nasty temper and showy mannerisms. Other old characters have been over coated with various shades of blackening grey. Yet, quite a few brilliantly interspersed interesting elements and well made action sequences makeup for this otherwise boring movie.