Don (2006)

Directed by: Farhan Akhtar | 170 minutes | action, drama, romance, crime, musical | Actors: Shahrukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Arjun Rampal, Kareena Kapoor, Om Puri, Boman Irani, Isha Koppikar, Naeim Ghalili, Pavan Malhotra, Chunky Pandey, Diawakar Pundir, Sushma Reddy

‘Don’ is a remake of the 1978 classic film of the same name, in which “the big ‘B’”, Amitabh Bachchan, immortalized the title character. A big gamble, therefore, to choose this film for a remake. But with names like Sharukh Khan, Om Puri and Boman Irani in the cast, there must be something beautiful to make of it. Fortunately, especially Khan turns out to be surprisingly well in place in the double role of Don and Vijay. He may be the biggest Bollywood star these days, but his degree of overacting in melodramas, in which he usually took on a romantic lead role, did occasionally cause some toes to curl due to his overly sad or infatuated facial expressions and watery eyes. His other big hit from 2006, ‘KANK’, was also not entirely convincing and lacked chemistry with co-star Rani Mukherjee (who always impresses). But ‘Don’ finally shows why Shahrukh is a star: as the title character, he doesn’t have to get bogged down in sugary romance but plays the role of cool and ruthless villain with verve. From the moment we see him put on his sunglasses and take out an undercover cop with a well-placed golf ball to the head, he convinces. His scenes with his female counterparts are also sparkling, such as the one in which he explains to Kareena Kapoor, who tries to seduce him and then takes him out, what kind of women he doesn’t like; or the physical confrontation scene with Priyanka Chopra in which Khan makes clear his preference for “wild cats”. His role as simple villager Vijay is less developed, but his sullen demeanor is a nice contrast to Don. Especially Vijay’s terrified reactions when he has to sit on the operating table to completely turn into Don, including his scars (as in ‘Face/Off’), are very funny. Vijay doesn’t get much use as such, however. He soon transforms into Don and this is the character that sets the tone of the film again. The other characters in the film also have it. Kareena Kapoor’s role, although her place in the credits would suggest otherwise, is negligible. She doesn’t do badly, but before she can make any impression, she’s already gone from the film. It’s also a shame that her musical intermezzo is mainly loud and flat and not the dazzling, cheerful performance it could have been. An original song from the classic ‘Don’, called ‘Yeh Mera Dil Yaa Ka Diwana’ has been used, but the song has been given a new look that takes away almost all the charm and character of the original. A heavy techno beat has been thrown under the cheerful sounds of the song, leaving almost no melody to discover. Everything apparently has to be pimped for the new generation, but this does not always work out positively. The title track is fortunately one of the songs that do come out.

The female characters ultimately get little to do. This is especially unfortunate in the case of Priyanka Chopra’s Roma, which enthuses us early in the film with tantalizing scenes from which one would expect a meaningful, well-crafted storyline. We see her performing promising martial arts moves in a training room, and she manages to infiltrate Don’s criminal organization in a daring way. Yet she is disappointingly little in action. The storyline about Don’s pressure on Yajit (Arjun Rampal) and his search for his son is then relatively redundant. Without this story, the film would have lost none of its power or logic (where it already exists).

Fortunately, the central story is told with great speed by Farhan Akhtar. Despite the length of almost three hours, your attention as a viewer rarely wanes. Because of the dazzling action, the nice acting and the musical intermezzos, the film can hardly be called boring. Slow motion, low camera angles for (anti-)hero Don, flashy “24” split screens – which we saw earlier in ‘Dhoom’ – and the techno soundtrack that often plays in the background keeps the film going. Well, we’ve often seen it portrayed this way in many a Hollywood action film, but India shows that it is not inferior to this. Here we see acting that is once not bold, but remains within the limits of the “permissible”; and hardly any action scenes that are too illogical or over-the-top. That is, no more over-the-top than the average Michael Bay production. This makes ‘Don’ a very accessible film for a Western audience. Get rid of the songs and you could almost swear you’re watching an American movie. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage. After all, thick emotions and over-the-top action scenes are part of it. In any case, it would be a shame if Indian or Bollywood cinema lost its uniqueness. By opting for a natural, “serious” approach, a new need arises for deepening or some special property to provide added value to the film. Fortunately, there is no need to despair just yet. The songs are still there and when we are treated to a spectacular, over-the-top scene where Don/Vijay crashes out of a plane without a parachute and dives towards a man who is also in free fall to get his parachute, we realize with pleasure that we are indeed in Bollywood. A witty montage joke occurs when Don is about to crash with his parachute. From a shot of Don there is a cut to a shot of a toy parachutist that two playing boys have thrown in the air. For a moment you think you are looking at very bad effect work, and then you see how the fork is in the handle.

With the exception of the remixed tracks from the original Don, which don’t always work, the modern approach Akhtar has taken has been successful. Modern technology and intrusion techniques are used, and the physical diary with the sensitive information from the original – which acts as McGuffin (the object that propels the plot but actually has little meaning) – has now been replaced, for example, with a small data/umd -disc. Akhtar also added an important twist to the original story, which raises at least as many questions as it answers, but is quite successful overall. Moreover, this leaves room for a sequel, for which there are already plans. Not a bad prospect. For anyone who still needs a familiar, over-the-top action shot before then, there’s always ‘Dhoom 2′.