“Don2: Unconvincing but crisp, sleek and uber-cool”

Each and every frame of Don2 is suave, exotic and exquisite but when all those frames are combined and run together, Don2 misses the plotline. The plot is very simple though: Five years later, Don(Shahrukh Khan)—after establishing his unchallengeable fiefdom in Asia—heads towards Europe to extend his drug-cartel. This expectedly does not go well into the European mafia and they consort themselves to ‘keel Don’. But Don apparently has some other plan and to pull it off, he needs his old-time ‘frenemy’ Vardhan(Boman Irani). So what does he do now? Simple: He surrenders himself to the cops: Roma(Priyanka Chopra) and Mr. Malik(Om Puri), and takes Vardhan out of Kuala Lampur jail. From there they head to Zurich and then to Berlin to steal “banknote printing plates” from the highly-secured central bank, which will make him, well, rich! Sounds simple? But Don has several sub-plans in the plans which make him con Vardhan again this time. In his sub-plans, his aides are Ayesha(Lara Dutta) and the hacker-guy(Kunal Kapoor). At the end of the story, Don has the banknote-plates and he manages to strike a deal with the police—remember the “disk” in the prequel? Yeah, he gives it to the cops and all the European mafia is behind bars—and Don, now, is a free respectable man!

Don2 begins with a slow and dragging first half and takes time to pitch in all the characters. The second half is much better and sharp. The movie is all about Shahrukh and he does not disappoint his fans a bit by pulling his character off with style and élan, though he sometimes go overboard with his baritone and pitch which diminishes the overall seriousness of the sequence. But full marks to the ease with he slips into negativity. Boman Irani, surprisingly, looks out of form here. And no matter how hard Priyanka Chopra tries, she does not look threatening et all and is a pain to bear. Om Puri disappoints and does not have much footage. Lara Dutta does her brief cameo with elegance and charm. Kunal Kapoor is okay.

Direction, costumes and background score is all where Don2 scores.  Every single shot oozes style and polish. The fight and car-chasing sequences are engrossing and the shots of never-seen-before Berlin are breath-taking. But the plot, like a party-spoiler irritates, is hardly convincing (except the part where they loot the bank) and leaves many unanswered questions:

If getting out of jail was that easy, then was Vardhan waiting for Don all these years to get out? Why did Don need Vardhan? Didn’t he have his own men? Seemed so, given that in the opening sequence, he takes his own consignee!(In spite of being...well...DON, humility? )

After planning to ‘keel Don’, where was the European mafia partying instead of killing Don, he came to Berlin, right? We wanted to see someone apart from dumb Indian Cops chasing Don there!

Once bitten twice shy, right? Not so much in case of the cops (Priyanka and Om Puri) who are coxed by Don into believing in him. They repeatedly buy the fact that Don has got a change of heart and really want to help them! 

As an insult to the viewer’s intelligence, the part where Hrithik (Yes, he’s there too to up the style-quotient) unmasks himself as Don, is well…very lame!

Apart from the flaws in the plot, Don2 is a visual treat and matches the panache of Hollywood flicks like Ocean’s11. Watch it out for Shahrukh, who undisputedly is the king of—like everything—the movie. All cheers to Shahrukh and his charisma.  

~My ratings (3/5)

Reviews200: Coronation Durbar Delhi 1911

Coronation Durbar Delhi 1911, Official Directory with maps 

Printed at Superintendent Government Printing, Calcutta

Exactly a hundred years back, on 12^th December 1911, the Coronation of King George V – who became the first British monarch to visit India – was held in the durbar of Delhi. And the Capital of British Empire was moved from Calcutta to Delhi without public knowledge. The conglomeration for the event witnessed every ‘Who’s Who’ of British Empire and their Princely Allies. The sheer scale at which the event was held meant that planning to the minutest of scale and resources to be used were detailed out as specifically as possible. The directory serves as the official document for planning and organization of the coronation and one sees the eye for details of the organizers.  All ceremonies, receptions, parades, awards, routes, places and people involved, sports, and departure are precisely detailed out with maps where required. The document serves as an important resource to appreciate the planning and resource-management of British of those times.

PS: Indeed the centenary of the event is not even talked about – let alone being celebrated – in the country today. The Coronation Park in Northern Delhi, today, remains neglected, unmarked and locked.

The document can be downloaded from archives.org here

"Minor Weekend Blues: Strictly No Stags"

Every Friday, e-invitations to parties and gatherings at some or other club, pub or any such place swarm my inbox. I hardly peruse through these invites for the idea of shaking my hips on a week-end does not appeal to me (what? People can hate to be among people!); what mostly occupies me is reading - for it does not necessitate the need of moving one’s butt for several hours; and next to browsing web, it is the easiest act I can pull off with my eyes open. So I never bother to check what they are about, but this weekend, boredom curiosity overtook the better of me and I ended up reading all such invites in my inbox. Now you know what such invites offer but one particular line, which was emboldened, caught my attention: Strictly no Stags; and it ran common in all invites. For a moment I ended up empathizing for a particular class of harmless and shy animals; but logic united consciousness in no time and I realized: it demeans animals and humans alike, words are deceptive – the phrase has a rich and impressive etymological background of porn, animal psychology, and Scotland – and most importantly, it throttled any chances of me making at such events. That one line threatened me that unless I come accompanied with a member of the fairer sex, entry would be denied! I did not sleep during school social-science lectures and I can vouch that it is very unconstitutional (ha! But no pun intended!); and most importantly, it is utterly sexist for it accents the very existence of a man to woman. It is demeaning to assume that a stag single-guy would look towards a gathering of this kind as an opportunity to breed. Being with a woman is anything but exclusive and a single-guy is not a stag that would compete with other males to substantiate his masculinity. But my intellectual musings will be all Greek to those dumb hedonists. Let them promote sexism while I sleep, eat, and sleep this week-end. I may also listen to Nicole Scherzinger’s I don’t need a (wo)man…

Reviews200: A Narrative of the Siege of Delhi, Charles John Griffiths

A Narrative of the Siege of Delhi, Charles John Griffiths

Comprising mostly of a journal entries of around four months by a high-rank official of British Army of Ferozepore regiment during the times of “Mutiny/First War of Independence” in 1857, it gives a general perspective of the attitude of a British of that time; important insight towards the disregard of natives, expectedly racist, biased, overtly-bragging account of the capture of Delhi. The first chapter describes the flippant attitude of the British during the first few days of the rebellion. The blowing-off of rebels with cannons describes how British used religion as a strategy (blowing off the body unfits both Hindus' and Muslims' religious requisite for the proper last rites). The book drags over the next three chapters accounting the days at war-field and loss of men on both sides. The last two chapters describe the occupation, loot, and riches of the city. The writer admittedly smitten by the grandeur of the city, rebuts the plan to blow off Jama Masjid merely as a rumor (it has been at times theorized that the British had prepared to detonate the masjid unless they were compensated by the Muslim populace for their losses at war); decent book which should be read with skepticism.

It can be downloaded from PG here.

©Rakesh 2011

Reviews200: Twilight in Delhi, Ahmed Ali

Prologue

Reviews200 is my attempt at documenting the readings I do, without going into too many intricacies; keeping it simple and short, in less than 200 words.

Twilight in Delhi, Ahmed Ali

I probably read of this book in William Dalrymple’s City of Djinns. After much searching around, thanks to Flipkart, I finally got hold of it last weekend. First published in 1940, it was banned by the British for being subversive. But hardly any portion of the book is so and disappointingly, the book is more about a family who are descendents of Mughals than it is about Delhi. But Delhi remains an important character in the background though and the writer’s description of the city is flawless. Surprisingly some of descriptions still can be very closely related to the old Delhi of these times. The writing is poetic and the book serves as an important document revealing the times and culture of city during immediate preceding years to independence. The coronation of King George V in Delhi durbar is well described.  Apart from that, there are hardly any descriptions of British in Delhi. 

©Rakesh 2011