Don-2 – unfortunately the chase continues

Charming Don

Do exotic locales make a commercial movie stunning?

Does the lead hero’s halo alone create the magic around a great movie franchise?

Can a serious heist theme in a foreign country be the core of a masala Indian Bollywood film and yet pull if off?

Don-2 left a lot of these questions lingering in my mind when I left the hall. When I entered, I had great expectations. But interval came too soon and I realized it was going to be a waste overall. With movies, somehow you get to know in the first 20-30 minutes what’s going to be the overall offering. Very rarely does the pitch change midway. Sequels are always hard to make, and with a technical core, Don-2 just did not make it.

Gorgeously immortal

For those who came in late, the "Don" franchise was built by none other than Big B in the 1970s. Amitabh Bachchan did such a great job as the Don that a whole genre was created from scratch. It's sure that coming remakes will be judged against that benchmark.

Now our modern Don - King Khan – has emerged from the shadows (post Don-1 disaster) and has reached somewhere in East Asia (Thailand I guess) piloting a great yacht through some unbelievably beautiful rivers. And then he asks for the name of the best Italian restaurant in town, before mowing down an entire gang of hitmen armed with Uzis and stuff, who were out to execute him on orders of a rival international cartel. Then he lands up in a Malaysian jail only to smoothly slip out with Vardhaan (Boman Irani).

By the way, the Malaysian jail, if you look carefully, is so neat and clean, that our Indian home ministry mandarins can use it as a training tool for housekeeping guys back home. In fact, the toilets were better looking than of most hotels I have been to. What an amazing jail it must be!

The Don then hatches a grand conspiracy – after all he is the Don – to go for the biggest kill of them all. Why ask for ransom and all such filthy change when you can print it yourself! So the target is the printing-plates of the German Central Bank (Sorry Bundesbank, our guys robbed you right in the middle of the Euro crisis! How inconsiderate.)

Oh so inspiring!

Unfortunately the story’s core forms around this theme – and it gets more and more technical from there on. I don’t know why several moments reminded me of the great “Ocean’s 11” especially when the brilliant computer geek/hacker (Kunal Kapoor) is lubricated into participating in another illegal plot, much against the wishes of his almost-about-to-deliver-pregnant German wife (girlfriend?) and when the fire truck was prepared in the garage, and so on. Similarly the fight sequence between the SEK commandos and the gangsters is all too similar to the memorable military-building sequence of Matrix (part 1).

I suspect that the writers and director realized somewhere in the middle that the movie may lose all grip due to its technical storyline and slow pace, and hence created extra/artificial moments of romantic comedy (very silly at times, cool at some) and some chase sequences etc. But all this is, in the end, artificial, and hence very difficult for audience to accept naturally. In fact, Shahrukh's personal charisma is relied upon repeatedly to maintain the glue. The standard Donisms are thrown at us to ensure we stay in our seats. My advice to SRK - don't let movies be driven only by your cool quotient, or the cinematographer's quality, or some silly dialogues.. let your acting quality and a really deep, good story rule. You are capable of much much better output. Perhaps you need really classy directors to do justice to your talent.

Now the Don has a big target. So big names are cornered who’d help the Don secure entry to the sanctum sanctorum. These big names have a shady past that they’re all too eager to hide, etc. In fact the blackmailed guy starts looking so pathetic after some time you almost start pitying him and wish that this Don character gets a good whacking!

One thing I truly admire – Don’s negotiation skills. The intrepid deals he regularly cuts with the Interpol / police can make any hard-boiled corporate negotiator squirm in his chair. But since the jungli billi (wild cat) Roma is platonically / figuratively in love / infatuation with our great Don, she never shoots him. Not even when it is the final choice between her life and his. One feels sorry about this Sameer (Roma’s boyfriend).

One question though: Is there a single incident in the entire movie that proves Roma to be remotely close to being a jungli billi? In fact one cannot find a more confused school girl.

So after many chases and “booms” and blips and “damnits”, finally the Don escapes unhurt, with the plates! And God save this world – arrives to his mole and Sameer on a bike numbered Don-3.

Fun moments

Mallik (Om Puri) saying “It’s Don” on his mobile, to others around him. Even an exclamation was missing from his deep throaty voice here. His voice was so tired saying it, almost felt as if he wanted Don to win and take away whatever he wanted, and the film to end! In fact, right at the start when he informs Roma that he's retiring, one fears he actually means it!

Roma (Priyanka Chopra) saying “Damn it” with the unserious precision of a high school girl!

Vardhaan (Boman Irani) trying to look menacing – Sir aap kitni bhi koshish kar lo, cute hi lagoge! Surely that Jabbar fellow looks convincingly evil! What muscles, and what a bloody club that was :O

Missing from the movie

Music – did anyone hear anything?

Class – funky cars, slick cinematography and slicker physiques can beguile youngsters to treat it as class, but the mature eye can see the hollow core inside the gloss.

As said earlier, a the Euro is bound to collapse now. With the German currency printing-plates stolen by Don, Eurozone’s strongest economy is bound to fumble, taking with it the rest of the gang. Meanwhile, Don gets richer, presumably running his printing press in some safe corner in Patagonia. (and awaiting his return as the numberplate on the bike - Don-3 - clearly indicated! God!)

There’s a trend I see in movie-reviews and online feedback of latest releases : the imprint of 800-pound-gorilla-like PR machinery. It is distorting public opinion dangerously. So maybe this movie will do great commercial business, but remember - genuine fans of SRK (me included) are left wondering of the denudation that's setting in.

Cheers!

~

The Tintin saga - now in a theatre near you!

Let me start by saying a big "Thank You Steven Spielberg!" for bringing Tintin on screen in a serious way! After all these years of make-do animations, here's a promise that Tintin will reach out to a new generation unaware of the magic. While as a Tintin fan I feel there's a long way to go before justice is done on the big screen to the legend that's Tintin, it's a great start.
...

Close to 80 years ago, a Belgian artist dreamed of a boy character who would take on the villains of the world, and stand for peace and justice. Little did that artist realise that Titin - his boy character - will become a legend in his own lifetime. 'Millions of books sold in many languages around the world' hardly captures the success of the boy character. The zeal and love that his fans hold for him in their hearts perhaps does.

Tintin was a result of the circumstances of those days. The artist - George Remi (R.G. - Herge) - brought real life incidents to bear upon the development of the character of Tintin. Slowly, over the decades, more characters joined the duo of Tintin and Snowy.. and the family grew to a handsome and reliable lot! Travelling all around the world, taking on the most devilish of villains in the most believable of ways, Tintin brought happiness and cheer to kids and adults alike.

A Chinese Arab spring?

A question that's popped in many minds since the Arab spring started dislodging long entrenched regimes in the Arab world is - Will China go the same way?

I did a social media brainstorming.. here are the results! Very good insights spanning the whole spectrum. (insights not edited)


The Question
Almost all the Arab world dictators have fallen in past 10 months. In Dec 2010, no one had seen it coming! Do you think the same can repeat in China one day? If yes, when?


Piyush Joshi why will this happen in China?

Kunwar Gyan Singh Pawar sir ji china ka to pata nahi, but India me 2013 me jarur hoga

Aditya Jain The day China enters in a war with India. All the attention of armed forces and intelligence agencies of China will be on India and that will be the end of China's communism.

Deepesh Baghela Definitely yes...when growth of China will be slowed down & People of China will focus on Democracy

Nitesh Arya not in this decade..

Why India lacks a "Harvard Business Review" - a case study



Appeal for the World

Management institutions are built to serve three core purposes - (a) promote direct education of young and mature students, (b) create productive academia-industry engagements, and (c) act as a research and publications platform for high-quality, original thinking.

It is the third role that we will discuss in this case study.

Undoubtedly, when there's a lot of original research going on in a B-school (if you have a smile on your face, you know the malaise!), there will be an inclination to publish it. It's perhaps the best currency of power you have with corporates. It can generate future revenue streams for your school more reliable than student enrolment, perhaps.

  

So, research and publications at any management institution depend on some factors:

1. Quality faculty willing and capable to do original research
2. Enough industry interfaces available to ensure lots of credible raw material to research on
3. Design and publications team that can present the ideas and research paper in a lucid manner
4. Successful commercial interface (advertisements and marketing promotions)
5. Process owner - the key driver of the effort

The number of managements institutions that dot the landscape of India, the amount of public funds that the central government lavishes on the chosen ones (the Indian Institutes of Managements - IIMs) and the tremendous media heft that these B-schools carry with local and national media, suggest to a layman's mind that there would be several world class management journals being published from these hallowed portals of management education in India.

Ra.One - Oh fish

As is the tradition with movies that are promoted like mad, most of them turn out to be far below expectations.

And so it is with Ra.One. 

If you have taste, and watch a lot of good movies, and appreciate the calibre of actors like Shah Rukh and Kareena, then Ra.One will come as a terrible disappointment - to be aptly summarised in the words of the irritating boy character Prateek - Oh fish!

The movie comes from Ms Gauri Khan's kitchen, inspired thus:

Today we will create a new Hindi SciFi Action movie - Ra.One

Take the golden container labelled Shah-Rukh-Khan

Put in 300 gms special effects from Matrix (be shameless, go ahead)

Add 250 gms special effects from Terminator series esp. Terminator Salvation (mix hard, don't feel scared)

Add another 500 gms of totally-out-of-the-place emotions (sprinkle uniformly across the movie)

Don't forget 100 gms of robot-learning-antics from the classic "The Bicentennial man"

Plus 1 kg of a totally-cool Chhammak Chhallo that's absolutely out-of-the-place in this movie

Don't forget to put in some glamorous faces (ensuring makeup even in mourning)

And some now mandatory Hindi expletives (the Delhi-Belly effect)

Now wrap it with a silver-foil called Kareena

Cook to a charcoal-black, and let the smell spread for many months before you serve.

Enjoy patrons. Thanks for buying the tickets, and paying extra for the 3-D glasses.