Don Ko Bardasht Karna Mushkil Hi Nahi…..

The Khan full of Corn

 

I used to be a huge fan of SRK in school and in college, and then I grew up. While many of them still swear by his “powerhouse” performances it only makes me wonder if they watched the same movie as I did.  I had the misfortune of watching Don 2 the other day, at the end of which I thanked my stars that I had not wasted my money by watching it in theatre. The only good thing that had anything to do with Don 2 was its trailer, because you don’t get to watch much of Shah Rukh Khan speaking in it, and even if he does, you don’t get to see his face! It fools you into believing that technically well made films are SRK Ham proof. But I got news for you, no movie is SRK Ham Proof. Don 2 is quite nutritious, considering the fact that it has a lot of cheese, corn and ham in the guise of dialogues, acting and SRK respectively. He with his wrinkled skin who looks like Boman Irani’s father emotes like he has a hundred ants going down his pants, refers to himself in the first person, brags of how miles ahead he is of his enemies and often refers to Priyanka Chopra–who is nothing but the female version of SRK in terms of acting as “Jungli Billi” or loosely translated as “Wild Pu…” “Wild Cat”. He sniggers, heckles and delivers his lines with the sincerity of a B-movie actor in a film with A-grade production values. Imagine Viveik Oberoi as Bruce Wayne/Batman delivering dialogues in a Christopher Nolan like film, Shahrukh Khan is something like that in Don 2.

Technically the film is miles ahead of what is generally churned out in Bollywood, the direction is slick, the cinematography is splendid, the stunts are fantastic. But Farhan Akhtar at a crucial juncture of the film decides to play to the galleries and botches up by trying to redeem Don–the cold blooded criminal into a do-gooder. And it is by conforming to the Bollywood standards of trying to show a negative character who is played by a superstar into a good hearted Samaritan does Akhtar make a passable affair into something unbearable.

If you thought watching SRK walk around with a swagger mouthing of repartees that would make you cringe was hard enough to bear, you also have the ignominy of watching Priyanka Chopra play a cop who is after Don all the while trying to resist Don’s flirtatious advances at her. And as Priyanka Chopra shows us, it takes a large amount of level headedness to not fall for the charms of a 50-year old criminal who when delivering dialogues has as many creases across his face as your pants would have on a Monday morning. But all said and done, Don is way more awesome than you and your father.

        a) He breaks out of a maximum security prison by using a never imagined before idea of poisoning the food of rest of the inmates and making them fall sick. Whodathunk!

       b) He breaks out of a prison and does not lay low, he instead goes to a Malaysian night club to sing his own praises and shakes a leg with Lara Dutta in the process.  It does not matter to him that he is one of the most wanted criminal in the Interpol list. When the Don has to go to a nightclub, he goes to a nightclub.

       c) He gets into uninvited gala dinners by masquerading himself as Hrithik Roshan, he also increases his height by just wearing a mask.

d

      d)He is the only crime lord in the world who can do the tango.

      e) Even his backup plans have a backup plan.

f     f) He can make the Interpol grant him immunity and absolve him of all his crimes. Twice.

g    g) He is pretty good at detecting that Priyanka Chopra’s colleague has the hots for her. If only fathers were so clever couples wouldn’t have to elope to get married.

h    h) He can make even Ra.One look like a masterpiece.

        I wouldn't bother giving out the details of the storyline because you might have already watched it. But if you haven't seen it yet, here is a gist of what happens in the movie to save you from some misery. There is a heist which Don plans for which he assembles his team like Danny Ocean. After robbing the heavily guarded item in a scene that looks so original that you wouldn't be reminded of Mission Impossible, one number of expected betrayal happens by an arch enemy whom he had roped in to help him out. By now with the number of first person dialogues Don says, you would have figured that it is not easy to make a chutiya out of Don, although it is way easier to make one out of you since you have been watching the predictable events unfold for two hours now. So the smart-ass Don switches the stolen item with a fake hands the bad guy to the cops and gets an immunity in return and GTFO there with the real money printing plates that they had stolen.

        Now if you will excuse me, I have to go watch Gabtun Vijaykanth save the world in Narasimha. Gabtun may not be called to address those snobby Yale students, or they may not find enough amount of wax in the world to make a statue of his paunch in Tussaud's, but atleast Gabtun is not a pretentious douchebag and delivers the laughs which he never promises.