By now most of you must have watched Travel Agent Vinod..err… I mean (and no, I am not mean) Agent Vinod. It was slated to be Saif Ali Khan’s magnum opus and I have to say that perhaps only the Nawab could have carried off the role with chutzpah it deserved. It is also a lesson to makers of spy movies with due apologies to John Le Carre, Ian Fleming & Robert Ludlum. While Le Carre’s Smiley is a wee bit outdated in the post cold war scenario, Bond is alive and well and the enigmatic Jason Bourne is currently everyone’s favorite spy. So take a little bit off the three classic gentlemen and combine ‘em into one bloke, add a sexy damsel, shoot and scoot across different continents but make sure the Pakis are the villains and viola, you have your desi spy thriller.
I usually do not read about the movies that I plan to see and this was no exception. However for some weird reason I connected the title of the movie with the famous character having the same name in the Hindi Jasoosi novels of the sixties. Therefore in my imagination the action revolved in desi locales with desi babes. However with the opening staccato of the AK47 in the badlands of Afghanistan commenced a breathless journey across the world in three hours and twenty minutes. I can conceive of a million reasons for blowing up the world with an atomic device but why does it have to be only Mujahideen after the poor us Indian kafirs. Next time around how about a Guju Marwari blowing up a KFC joint or a group of carnivorous Punjabis storming an Udipi Tiffin. I am sure Saif will look cool swirling a drumstick before poking it in the eyes of the hapless turbaned waiter and simultaneously delivering a roundhouse kick to the pot bellied Tiffin manager. No amount of gloss can make up for lack of a strong story and I have been yelling about this since the day Adam & Eve ate the forbidden fruit. But very few have listened and certainly not Mr. Saifu. Since the story has been given a thumb down it was left to the special effects and action guys to retrieve the movie. The action excites as well as irritates. Experimentation with the upside down camera was confusing and eminently avoidable. We even gave a long and a hard look at the projector room wondering if the guy in charge had suddenly remembered Baba Ramdev and turned some switch doing his Vipreet Garud Asana.
And when will I see the day when the hottie in the negative role will not justify her being so with some sob story? When will she be unabashedly villainous? When will she narrow her eyes, pout and say “I am bad but baby I AM good”. Until that happens you can admire Kareena who is now way past her zero size and aiming for No 10. But hey, let me tell you that I am a great though ancient fan of the dhishum dhishum movies and from that angle alone the experience wasn’t half so bad. What queers the pitch a tad little is if, like me, you too watch a lot of Hollywood movies because then the comparisons become inevitable and even accounting for the lower investment in the production the end result isn’t that great. But a good try Mr. Saifu. We haven’t had a decent spy movie in decades and I hope this launches a thousand Berettas.
