Do not torment me oh!

Saif Ali Khan: Aaj mere pass Bebo hain, Raghavan hain, Pritam hain.. tumhare pass kya hain?

Sujoy Ghosh: Mere pass ek ‘Kahaani’ aur ek Bidya hain.

Saif Ali Khan: Aaj mere pass, action hain, foreign locations hain, drama hain, style hain…

Sujoy Ghosh: Mere paas substance hain.

Saif Ali Khan: Aaj mere paas..

Sujoy Ghosh: Pata hain Sir, aapke paas Royal Stag hain and you have made it large. But, I guess, I have made it… larger!

No wonder, Kahaani is still drawing a ‘house-full’ crowd on a weekend and AV theatre remains only half-filled. And as for me, I wanted to watch AV for the ‘free gift’! “Dil mera muft (Muft! Muft!) ka”. I was enthusiastic about the song and Bebo. I had fallen in love with the Bolly lyrics after a long time (Caution: Amitabh Bhattacharyya is the National Award winner, who also happens to be the lyricist of the song), “Socha tumhara bhi dil hum khareedein/ Kya daam hai bolo kaato raseedein”. But, Fancy, why did you cheat us so well? I was lured into the trap. I katoed the tickets only to realize how the film tests your patience and tortures your sanity.

Agent Vinod (AV) borrows its name from a 1977 film, produced by, well, don’t be shocked, Rajshri Productions. And you always thought Rajshri could only make a Chitchor, a Maine Pyaar Kiya, a Hum Aapke Hain Kaun! or a Hum Saath Saath Hain! Anyways. Although AV pays a small tribute to the actor of the 1977 film, Mahendra Sandhu ,which happens to be one of the many names of the agent in the film, the old film really doesn’t offer much help to the new screenplay (by Sriram Raghavan and Arijit Biswas). AV plays with the names of the characters. The agent takes up various names and the characters too have screen names which are so unlike the regular Raj and Priya Malhotras. Apart from the intricacy of the names, the ‘few’ good things about the film are the retro background score by Daniel B. George, the performance of Adil Hussain (the man who played Srikanto in Anjan Das’ Iti Srikanto) and Muraleedharan’s cinematography. And, with bated breath, I am actually struggling to find out if there was remotely anything else that can be counted as good. Yes, our Vinod is good, but why did it seem to me that he was more of a producer than an actor? Raghavan’s Ek Haeesna Thi and Johnny Gaddar were so good, that here it seems that the director had left his chair to the producer from the Illuminati to ghost direct an entertainment saga. Kareena, with her weight on the positive co-ordinates of a graph, looks pale. One bad thing that has happened to this Chameli post Jab We Met is that she suffers from a trauma of getting into the Geet mode, time and again. She is otherwise an intelligent actor and the way she had managed not to fumble with Geet in Ek Main Aur Ek Tu was commendable. Here she is very conscious and much rehearsed, so unlike a natural actor that she otherwise is. Her romance with Chhote Nawab doesn’t ignite any fire. As for the rest of the cast, Zakir Hussain and Rajat Kapoor are wasted. The bad men Shahbaaz Khan, Prem Chopra, Ram Kapoor and Gulshan Grover play their allotted parts well. And Dhritimaan Chatterjee. It seems after Om Puri’s tailor-made Police Commissioner roles, he is the new found aristocratic villain in Bollywood. Time to take up new scripts Mr. Chatterjee. We have had enough of your Janus-heads in Ekti Tarar Khonje, Kahaani and now in AV. The young man who plays Jimmy (Anshuman Singh) somehow sparkles with his angst and the chill in his looks.

The story is all about a chase. Chasing a box which is portable a nuclear bomb and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is its detonator. The crew surely flies on the wings of poesy! And this chase continues around the world. By the time you know who is where on the globe, you actually forget the last locale. Afganisthan, Moscow, Morocco, Karachi, Somalia and New Delhi; you can avail a virtual vacation if you survive the torture.

Vinod is no Bond, for sure. This Indian version of a stylized action/suspense thriller is definitely not like its Western counterpart. It has its tit-bits of romance here and there, supposedly emotional moments but unfortunately some intolerable action sequences. Why ape English action? Action films in India have their own merit. But money has to be drained and talents, wasted! The encounters are easily managed and before you can blink, a villain gets killed. Vinod at one point in the film, expresses how he had wanted to be a painter, but somehow got stuck as an investigative agent and enjoyed being at the transitional point between life and death with every adventure.Wish he had been one and exhibited his paintings in Paris. It could have been a better career choice than being a victim of an action director, who makes a mockery of an Indian agent. Peter Heins, look back in anger!

Saif as Agent Vinod

There’s no fun in giving out a story of a film that apparently seems to be a thriller. If it’s a chase by an Indian agent, and if you are a regular movie buff, you know who is responsible for planning a blast in the capital. But beware, we have a twist. A serious issue is highlighted and a new perspective introduced on the part of the screenplay writers who never allow the film to end. It suddenly delves into a socio-political scenario, making the common men in the audience go blank. There are humorous moments in the film that stand out in the mayhem. But that doesn’t help the editor either. The film promises never to end and it changes its locations and events as you change your ringtones on the cell phone! It drags and by the time you actually come to the end, you know why the producers included the “Pungi” song (another ‘copy and paste’ by Pritam) during the final credits. Pity the audience!

A film may take two years to complete, but this can never be the product of a two-year ‘research’. Style has never been a substitute for substance. So it’s your choice. If you want to sit for almost three hours in an AC theatre and enjoy the confusion, AV is that dose of entertainment. As for me, if the Agent asks me, my answer won’t hurt him. I liked your shoes Agent, your cars and your efforts, bas “mujhe aapka film achcha nahin laga!” Yes, Sire, “They say His legacy is the one he made”. Now, with an AV added to your feather, they’ll say: it’s this dud of a film that he has also produced!