As mentioned in my previous post, here is why I would avoid this movie:

Farhan Akhtar’s Don releases this Friday in what is expected to be the highest grossing weekend ever in the history of Hindi cinema. This is due to the fact that another highly anticipated movie, with top stars like Akshay / Salman is also releasing on the same day. There are already reports of some amazing advance bookings for both movies. I am definitely not one of the people waiting to see DON. Naturally the question, why? Here are my purely personal reasons and is not a movie review as I haven’t seen itJ:

Remake: The movie is a remake of a classic. A classic that has ruled our hearts for a long time! Agreed even Don was not an original (I doubt anyone knows thisJ), it was inspired by the Shammi Kapoor starrer China Town (with famous song “Baar Baar Dekho”). Getting inspired is one thing and remaking as is, is another. As a rule I am against remakes (remixes also!) as I feel they mean that the person associated with it does not have enough creativity to create his/her own thing and is using something created by others. Farhan Akhtar lets down after giving us such classy original movies like Dil Chahta Hai and Lakshya. A classic like Don should be enjoyed as the original. SRK/Farhan have consistently said this is a tribute to the original, but as a tribute they shouldn’t spoil the fun of the original. They say the current generation hasn’t seen Don, which should officially be categorized as the biggest joke of the year. Come on, in the last month the original has been on Set Max Channel a couple of times and is again scheduled this Sunday! Just watch the original and see the impact!

There are people who say enjoy this movie as is but don’t compare with the original. This might have been possible if not for all the talk mentioned above.

The main reasons one watches a movie could be for its casting or songs or dialogues. Let us dissect them here:

Casting: The most important reason for not watching the movie is its cast. This movie has the most absurd casting under the sun (apart from the crap that RGV is about to throw on us, which is a separate topic altogether). This is so bad that you want to tell Farhan to go to Agra! Let us dissect them one by one –

1. SRK as Don/Vijay (Amitabh in the original): SRK is a good actor, no doubt about that. But he has his limitations. He is good in the romantic movie genre but not in action movies. Anyone who does not agree with this can be broadly slotted into one of the two categories – an ardent SRK fan or people who haven’t seen his “action” movies. The ex-pressions that SRK has come up with in this movie remind you of those utter disasters of a movie watching experience called “Duplicate” and “Ram Jaane”. Just watch them! Also SRK’s role is somewhat similar to the one in Duplicate which also had a similar double role. His dialogue delivery is not what the public call “dum daar” and without that how do you expect the immortal lines from the original to be replicated. Already the one about “gyarah mulkon ki pulis” is on TV and is bad!
2. Arjun Rampal as Jasjit (Pran in the original): Actually this is more shocking. Pran was an accomplished and proven actor, a legend in his own lifetime but Arjun is nothing of that sort. Agreed he is a good looker but his acting…hmmm. Let me not even get into dissecting it!
3. Kareena Kapoor as Kamini (Helen in the original): Anyone who knows Hindi movies can be as disenchanted as I am when you plan to replace the incomparable Helen. Agreed Kareena looks good but dancing to “Yeh mera dil” ala Helen! She also tries to ape Helen’s movements which make her look stupid. There are some dance steps which should be left to the maestros and not be tried by novices. On top of this her statement was “People will associate this song with me in future, after this film” (the second best joke of the year!). The only reason this song picturisation is not the worst of the movie is that “Khaike” is hopelessly bad!
4. Priyanka Chopra as Roma (Zeenat Aman in the original): Zeenat was anyway not a great actress and Roma’s character needs to be shown sexy and flamboyant which Priyanka hopefully can pull off.
5. Other castings like Boman Irani as DCP Dsilva and Om Puri as Malik are actually good. Iftekar and Om Shivpuri (in the original) were not great shakes as actors but were ones who held their own. But these two are in a separate league.
6. No idea who all would play the roles of Deepu, Munni, Inspector Verma, Narang, Shetty etc…all characters which are etched in movie buffs memory!

 Songs: As already mentioned they are bad! The only decent song is the “Main Hoon Don” which has been done quite well. Udit Narayan tries to inject life into blasphemously pathetic re-mix of the classic song “khaike paan banaraswala” with his energetic rendering of the song but there is only so much a singer can do. The song reminds us of the “Jhakaar Beats” phenomenon that ailed the music industry in the 90s. Also point to note is the “dancing”. What on earth was Saroj Khan thinking about (maybe the judging in the reality show “Nach Baliye” has had an effect here!) while choreographing this one. Others are also bad.

Like somebody put it, “It seems casting people were on a holiday. SRK should have been in Jaaneman and Akshay in Don as the roles would have suited them better”. The movie will be having strong Pro or Anti sentiments also. Some people are watching it, just to see what has been screwed up, if at all. My take is that people who go to see what it is all about and come back saying it was as bad as expected are actually encouraging such movie makers. The makers just need people to watch it once and their box office collections zoom, which in turn mean that other film makers will try such stupidity. I for one don’t want to contribute to Ritesh Sidwani’s coffers (Producer of the new Don).

One thing for sure that the movie will be definitely good in, is the technicality. It would be amazingly shot for sure. It will also have a big opening weekend and maybe break records. But that is no substitute for a good movie watching experience.