Aniruddha Guha reviews Agneepath

Film: Agneepath
Director: Karan Malhotra
Cast: Hrithik Roshan, Priyanka Chopra, Rishi Kapoor and Sanjay Dutt
Rating: ***½

Mukul S Anand's Agneepath(1990) has an iconic shot - Amitabh Bachchan on a speed boat, the Mauritian sea shining as he hurtles towards his nemesis, played by Danny. It's the first time the grown-up Vijay Dinanath Chauhan is meeting Kancha Cheena, and is a major turning point in the story.

In Karan Malhotra's Agneepath, Vijay travels to Mandwa, a small island where Kancha resides. The water isn't sparkling, the mode of transport is a ferry. And neither Vijay nor Kancha is dressed in a suit. There's an inherent rawness, and it works beautifully given the context. Vijay is returning to the village he was shunted from years ago. The emotional undercurrent is, hence, stronger.

Malhotra's Agneepath oscillates from dark (Mandwa is shot in hues of blue and grey) to colourful (Mumbai in all its splendour), overt melodrama to effective drama, and from hyperbole to, well, less hyperbole. Having thrown subtlety out of the window, Malhotra pays tribute to not just Mukul Anand's Agneepath, but also to an entire genre of films that lit up screens and fuelled the box office in the 1980s and 1990s. Maa ka pyaar, behen ki izzat, baap ka badla. All of it is doled out in generous measure, Malhotra having a ball recreating the kind of film he probably enjoyed growing up.

An adaptation rather than a remake, the film assumes a life of its own once the central plot has been established -- evil Kancha (Sanjay Dutt) frames principled school teacher, Master Dinanath Chauhan, for a crime that results in his death; son Vijay Chauhan (Hrithik Roshan) returns years later to seek revenge. Having dealt with that in the first 20 minutes (as in the original), the film then charts a journey of his own.

Vijay isn't a middle-aged, rich gang lord with a bevy of supporters. Instead he's younger, lives in a Dongri chawl room and works for gangster Rauf Lala (Rishi Kapoor). He's a lot more vulnerable, bottling up his emotions even as his eyes well up every now and then. He's also more expressive in his relationships, and some of the film's best moments are those shared by Vijay and his 15-year-old sister.