Thursday, January 26, 2012

Review: Agneepath (2012)



Agneepath... The one bollywood movie which I was waiting for ever since the trailers started airing. Remake of the 70s classic of the same name, Karan Johar's Agneepath (as it can be rightly called for the overdose of emotional drama present in the movie) is a good enough reason to pass time on a lazy day but not when you go in expecting a lot of action and vengeance.

The story is simple, its about Vijay Dinanath Chauhan's revenge on Kaancha for the latter's murder of the former's father in front of the public in a small island off the coast of Bombay (that's what they called in the movie). The story starts off in the year 1977 and travels 15 years hence when I'm not sure if Levi Strauss had introduced its jeans collection in India (the one which Hrithik wears all over the movie) and I'm not sure if there were digital projectors which projected without slides and also I'm not sure if flex banners were even made!

Anyways, putting aside these logical erroers (which was difficult to digest), Hrithik comes up with a stunning performance. His role is full of heroism and such a movie deserves to be in his filmography no doubt. Agneepath was way better than his previous commercial outings like Fiza, Krrish and to an extent Mission Kashmir (but MK was a very good movie). One can watch Agneepath for a sole reason, read Hrithik a.k.a Vijju a.k.a Vijay Dinanath Chauhan.

Songs by the marathi duo Ajay-Atul were kickass and awesome when we heard just the audio but when it came to the big screen, the visuals did not match up to it. The songs were extending the stretch of an already dragging flick.

Cinematography by Ravi K. Chandran and Kiran Deohans needs a mention here because giving different angles to an out and out commercial flick is a difficult thing to do and they do an awesome job here by providing interesting and stunning camera angles.

Sanjay Dutt plays Kaancha, the baddie who looks like a real scary baddie but doesn't score in acting much. His dialogue delivery were below par and did not have the punch that one was expecting. He basically failed to live up to the hype.

Director Karan Malhotra has extracted a lot of acting from Priyanka Chopra, Rishi Kapoor and Om Puri which you would have never seen before. Never expected Rishi Kapoor to pull off good stunt sequences. The other actors give their best shots only that the punch was lacking in the places and hence the dialogues do not register quite well on the viewer's mind.

Karan Johar has to be mentioned while reviewing Agneepath because one could see all the emotional drama and the tears pouring out of the screen (maybe the screen itself was crying). His impact on the visuals can be seen quite clearly by any ordinary person.

Katrina Kaif's Chikni Chameli doesn't stay in the mind for long. The song's magic was also lost. Other melodies like O Saiyyan (which I thought would be steamy and was no less steamy by making me sweat because of irritation) and Abhi Mujhme Kahin were pleasant to hear but not too good to watch.

Agneepath's second half is engaging but again the essence is lost towards by songs and stretch of simple sequences. The action scenes are the highlight and so is the macho man performing them.

Watch Agneepath if you are a die-hard Hrithik fan (which I am) and even if you want to re-live the classic in the new format but not if you are expecting a revenge powered kickass movie (it is no where close to it).


Rating: 2.5/5

Agneepath: Hrithik all the way!

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