Agent Vinod

Directed by: Sriram Raghavan

Starring: Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Ravi Kishnan, Prem Chopra

Released: 2012

Fight it, if you will, but whenever a spy movie appears people expect to see a version of a James Bond. Stylish, dangerous but fighting for „the good guys“, witty, with awesome one-liners for every occasion possible, sexy and with women swooning at his mere presence. Vinod is no exception and he fulfills this generally accepted perception of a secret agent to the utmost, as is quite apparent from the first moment we see him all beaten up and interrogated by the bad guys in a terrorist camp in a middle of a desert, seemingly with no chance to escape his certain death. After causing a mild shock to the viewer by his pretended disloyalty and betrayed of his country he manages to escape with a minor help of his secret accomplice and even manage to rescue a beautiful girl wearing fancy desi outfit and having a flaw-less make up on in spite of being tied in a bag. And it´s time to get onto other things – like finding out why Vinod´s collegue had to die in Russia and what exactly is '242', which was the last info that the dead agent provided.

Vinod´s search takes us places very much undiscovered by the Bollywood camera lenses, from cold Russia to dusty and hot Morocco, to how-many-of-you-can-find-it-on-the-map Latvia and ultimately of course Pakistan and India. Spectacular cinematography gives each place its own identity and takes some of the best out of what the countries mentioned have to offer. The plot is interesting enough, but ultimately lacked the thrill and mystery factor for me, since unlike Vinod we can pretty much get the hint that 242 is actually a nuclear bomb. The film is cleverly edited. Usually it is easy to loose orientation among many flashbacks, but the editing really makes the best out of it and in this matter the film really gives the impression of being seamlessly put together. 

I´m used to pain....

...but doctor tell me the injection will not hurt!

Saif Ali Khan is today undoubtedly among the most talented and charismatic actors in India. He blends into the character of Vinod with admirable ease and the powerful subtlety he acts with is brilliant. He owns the film, that was apparently written for him, with him and about him, and gives him a chance to shine. The action sequences may not be completely realistic, but they seem to be, so why complain? The weakness of the film it´s the length of it all. The perfect editing needed to be more tight.

The villains are plentiful and impressive, all different from each other which makes it even more great. Leaving the villanious businessmen running the world aside, Prem Chopra takes the cake among them with his portrayal of a Moroccan gangster having no mercy with people but shedding tears over his pet camel. To get a glimpse of Gulshan Grover was also a pleasant surprise, after all I´m a 90s fan!

Why do we always have to be the bad ones?

Because we are awesome like that.

A character yet to be mentioned is Iram, or „Dr. Ruby“ played by extremely-good-looking-in-this-movie Kareena Kapoor. Why only now? Maybe because it seems appropriate to ad her to the final product without caring much if she has a place in it, which apparently is the case of the role within the movie. From the promos Iram was somebody I was looking forward to, but she is stripped of her mystery way too soon, and had nothing more to offer except for a very awkwardly choreographed and executed Dil Mera Muft – a truly not good a song that was originally propagated as the new mother of all mujras (Ha!). As if Iram didn´t belong in the story at all and Saif just really wanted his girlfriend in it. When you have a real life couple though, wouldn´t you spice the story up with something romantic? But all those hoping for some love on screen were hugely disappointed, as Vinod and Iram are anything but lovers. 

Dil Tera Muft Ka? I should actually charge you for having to watch that dance!

Obviously hoping for a slick and rocking action movie coming to us from Bollywood may not be a completely futile one. No, Agent Vinod is not it. But it is a great promise for the future.

Chandra Mukhi

Directed by: Debaloy Dey

Starring: Salman Khan, Sridevi, Gulshan Grover, Mohnish Behl

Released: 1993

The moment you see that on your screen you get an uneasy feeling. Regardless if you hate or love Salman Khan, he has not really been good with filmy ideas. Ever. But possibly nothing he ever came up after Chandra Mukhi was just as bad. Although I was told beforehand it was a try at sci-fi genre, and despite being generally very open to such ventures and being very tolerant overal, this film has taken the place of the most silly film I´ve seen, previously occupied by Rajkumar (with Madhuri Dixit and Anil Kapoor in the lead). There was one big hole where plot holes were meant to be. Basically nothing made sense. I keep wondering why would Sridevi even agree to make such a film!

Somewhere in space, undetected by NASA apparently, there is a golden realm where a Queen is ruling through a golden leaf that grants you every wish, and where the Princess flies through the air and is longing to go down „to the Earth“ and meet the humans. To prevent her from going anywhere the Queen decides to hand over the Golden leaf to her, thus making her a Queen. Because there is a catch you see – if she decides to go to the Earth, she has to return soon unless the kingdom will be destroyed.

"But mum! Responsibility sucks!"

The Princess is subsequently attacked by a macho guy with supernatural powers, who of course desires the Leaf, and she actually falls down to the Earth, loosing the Leaf in the process. On the Earth she encounters a little boy Raja with a sad, sad fate. His parents died a long time ago, and recently his disgustingly rich grandpa went missing as well. He is so terrorized by his evil uncle and his friends. Outraged by this injustice the Princess, who by now has began to call herself Chandra Mukhi, makes her jaddoo. Poof! Raja wakes up being an all grown up and unwaxed Salman Khan! Together with several kids Raja decides to go and find his grandfather, and very conveniently Chandra Mukhi decides to go look for her lost Golden leaf at the same place. They are chased by evil uncle and his companions as well as the macho guy who threw the Princess down from the high heavens in the first place...

The evil characters have all one quality in common: they are all incredibly idiotic and incapable of actually doing something evil. Heck, none of them even managed to kill the kids! And "ruling the world" is apparently limited to make things go boom with the Golden Leaf. And you can spend a whole day like it. But the good guys are not much smarter anyway. For example it is totally cool to forgive people who tried to kill you and your grandson repeatedly. And Sridevi basically tells us the best thing when face to face with death is to start dancing. Every single time. She is in her „let´s be cute“ mode throughout, something that does not necessarily work for her in this, and instead of innocent and good she comes across as immature and silly. True enough, her expressions are adorable, but somehow you feel cheated knowing what she´s capable of. She and Salman were hugely criticized as a couple, under a pretext that she is too old for him. I beg to differ. Sridevi is only 2 years older than Salman and if the story was different, they would actually create a nice jodi. However what betrays them as a couple is the main and most important twist of the whole thing.

"Yesterday I played with a teddy-bear. Today I´ll have sex with Sridevi. Oh yeah!"

The idea of little boy completely skipping growing up and the very next day romancing a grown woman in a very physical way just felt pedophilic. Even more so since he actually changes back into a boy in the end. One of the songs clearly implies that Chandramukhi and Raja most probably indulged in physical love – which basically makes you sick. He is just a boy imprisoned in a adult body after all! I don´t think I´ve ever seen anything more wrong in any film ever.

Songs were plenty and badly forced into the story, but on their own they were quite good and so a highlight. The technical aspects and special effects did not stand the test of time, be it the lasers flashing from Sridevi´s eyes or even the depiction of the spacy kingdom.

WTF-ery of the first class, that did not forget to show that even the beings from outer space need Hindu Gods to solve their problems.

"DA FUCK IS THIS?"