Don? Don’t

Don
Cast: Shah Rukh Khan, Boman Irani, Priyanka Chopra
Direction: Farhan Akhtar
Rating: **
High risk. Everyone and their grandpops want to lay their mittens on a compact disc. What this yaara CD CD contains, no one knows, except that it’s all about such gents as Singhania, Britannia, Vardhan, Tamba Bartan, D’Silver, D’Brass. D’Copper. Loads of Dee company here. Oh dee..ah.

And dread, you don’t even want to hear that Don 2006 is a retread, because it’s all been coming out of ears, eyes and nostrils. You also don’t want to know if Farhan Akhtar has done a decent job, because frankly here’s one of the worst movies of the year. If you can figure out the story, surely a Nobel Prize for intelligence should be created for you instantly. 

Either the script or you, or both are as potholed as the city’s roads. And even if you consider this Ek Don Teen an art movie, you  might need Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani and Rituparno Ghosh on a conference call to explain the intricacies of the plot-pourri. Is it about a slipped disc or is it a love poem to the thespian powers of Boman Irani who hogs more footage than Priyanks-Ishy-Kareenoo, all put together? In fact, was the editor a relative, friend, admirer of Mr Irani?

In fact, how your heart longs for the camera to stay on Shah Rukh Khan, the prime  justification for this Akhtar-nama anyway. The most demanding  scene our SRK has, alas, shows him sleeping on a surgical table ;he just has to open his eyes diabolically and then close them tightly. His double role is so sketchily written that Khan has to depend on his own skills to keep you interested..yeah, the Khaike paan Malaysiawalla is fun..the actor is a thousand notches above the material, but then that’s a given, isn’t it?

Meanwhile in Koka Kualapur, Om Puri jogs around in a freshly purchased suit, a  Singhania  drinks flat champagne to roll over dead like a poisoned kitten. And hello  Arjun Rampal  searches for a long-lost son misplaced in a Manmohan Desai mela. What a jhamela.

Then what?Akhtar’s direction is shockingly amateurish, the sound design is flat, the cinematography is uneven, the stunts are deja phew. And whoever ordered those retro-editing circles and bubbles must be hired to do rangoli patterns forthwith.

The music by Ehsaan-Shankar-Loy is strictly killjoy. Okay, so there are some expensive aerial shots (wheee!) but please what about that cheddar cheesy stuff on a cardboard airplane?

Priyanka C looks better than she did in Krrish (which is not saying much), Isha Koppikar was more prominent in the TV promos, Kareenaji mustn’t get into thankless items-bitems. Arjun Rampal looks cool but has a slapdash part. And for sure, apro Boman should not act as if he’s playing Ben-Hur and Batman simultaneously.

Tip: if someone suggests a visit to this no-brainer, don’t.

khalid@dnaindia.net