DON

As the titles flashed by , I was transported to the good old school days when weekends meant checking out SONY MAX or ZEE CINEMA for some old Hindi classics . I became a huge fan of Big B after watching Deewar and Zanjeer and the fan became a devotee after Namak Halaal, Laawaris,Don,Sholay,Trishul etc. The timelessness of these were mainly due to Big B,cutting dialogues , R D Burman or Kalyanji Anandji- Kishore combo,masala story and pace of the movies.I would have watched DON,the 1978 blockbuster of Chandra Barot , completely atleast ten times and partially infinite times. Infact I even remember watching the Tamil remake BILLA starring superstar Rajni in Kumbakonam many summers ago and the gult remake YUGANDHAR with a disproportionate NTR . The gult version was horrible and left a bitter taste but the Tam one was pretty good. Thanks to LAN I watched yet another remake of one of my all time favs with the so called Baadshah of Bollywood teaming up with the suave, urbane, gen next director Farhan Akhtar.

SRK has done a great job, given his limitations like lover boy image, diferently abled talents like stammering etc. Though not very convincing as a top notch gangster, he has been able to carry the film on his shoulders well.Kareena in the item number is scorching hot!I wont say the same with respect to her other films though . However the choice of the side actors leaves much to be desired.Thankfully Farhan didn't commit the blunder of showing how martial arts can be learnt in ten days as done by the sexy Zeenat Aman in the original by showing an already trained Priyanka.Sadly the beautiful babe can't emote or dance.Seriously! And Arjun Rampal playing the role of a limping criminal, hell bent on taking revenge on the DCP (Boman Irani) was by far the worst choice. The master of the hamming code ,Pran had great dialogues in the original and made a huge impact. Some of the finest actors in Bollywood like Boman Irani and Om Puri (as the Interpol officer) have been wasted. Boman, though having decent footage doesnt get a chance to display his varied histrionic skills and was a little disappointing. These two chaps didnt get much roles in Lakshya too.

Like any Farhan movie this too has great locales, plush apartments,amazing gadgets, some sensational chase scenes and breathtaking photography which give a totally Hollywood look. The songs were a bit of a letdown but the rocking background music with electric guitar generously being thrown in compensated for the loss .Surprising that Indian directors have no qualms in blatantly copying famous scenes, promos etc.The green posters all over the town give a Matrix feel and the fights have been directly lifted from Bourne Identity. The chase and escape sequences , though well shot , are slightly out of the world though. Can you believe SRK escapes from a plane and fights in mid air for a parachute ?Oh yeah.He thulps his adversary , lands down and sings "Khaike paan banaras waala" after a few minutes !Or Priyanka snatching an injured Don from the cops in the first half by lifting the ambulance with a crane over a flyover when she could have easily lifted Don alone as the cops were already cornered by the gangsters and were unarmed :P. Some thought should have gone into these small aspects atleast.

The last few minutes offer some thrilling , edge-of-the-seat moments like Arjun walking across the Petronas Towers connecting bridge, Boman being made to run over high altitude cliffs and bridges etc ably supported by the stringing of the electric guitar and the camera work. The final scene will surely leave you bewildered and it is the trump card of the film! Farhan's talent comes to the fore in these scenes and one is bound to applaud them.

The bottomline is that first timers will fall in love with the flick , while others can only rue about the current acting talent , which is on the wane. Worth watching once mainly for the plus points mentioned above and to an extent for SRK. But one thing is for sure. SRK cant be Big B. As goes the trademark dialogue Yeh to mushkil nahi, namumkin hain!!!