Agneepath: Bland Celebration of Cult

I am keen to know what exactly led debutant Karan Malhotra (director of the film) to remake Agneepath. If one wants to pay tribute/homage to an old cult film, then one should just distribute its original DVD to his friends free of cost or one can also glue a 5 ft. long poster of that film exactly beside bed. If that is also not enough then one can always brag about it on social networking sites. Instead of poring their efforts in remaking the cult, they can make something original.  

This vendetta saga goes like this: In the village mandwa, there’s an evil drug lord Kancha (played by Sanjay Dutt) who wants to capture the land of the villagers. In his path of petulance and pettiness, only one person acts as boulder. None other than Dinanath Chauhan. Kancha hangs him till death in front of whole village. Vijay witnesses his dad’s death along with her mother (played by Zarina Wahab) and takes an oath that one day he’ll return mandwa to take revenge.

He leaves for Mumbai and he grows under the shadow of Rauf lala. No, he’s not a comedian we saw in laughter challenge. Rauf Lala is another drug lord (played by Rishi Kapoor) who later becomes ladder for Vijay. There’s also an inspector and protagonist's younger sister. Rememeber cinema of 90s? These characters are pre-requisite for a full-blown melodrama. Om puri dons the role of “inspector gaaytunde” who is hell bent on catching these drug lords and also, Vijay. Om puri is a fatherly figure to Vijay so he not only respects him but saves his life too. Yes, we have reached climax after fulltoo draamebaazi and there’s just one predictable hand-to-hand fight remaining for us.  

Well, director has worked as chief assistant director for Jodhaa-Akbar. It appears. Each and every frame is lit gorgeously. Film is shot in Diu and some mill in Mumbai. Art-direction (by Sabu Cyril) is of top-notch and one of the best in recent times. Film easily convinced me that I was watching a film, set in 70s. Songs are strictly okay and loud background score goes hand-in-hand with cheesy dialogues. 

Agneepath indeed has some touching moments and for that, credit goes to Hrithik. Emotional scenes are timed very well by Hrithik. My favorite scene in the movie is when he leaves the dining table with painful tears and eats outside, on stairs of his house. Great actor competently portrays quantum of calm, anger and insufferable ache. He really explored the horizons and played Vijay Dinanath Chauhan convincingly. 

Rishi Kapoor is terrific as Rauf Lala. And actually much much better than the dangerous looking Sanjay Dutt who as main villian delivers just an average performance. And that hampers this film. Kaali (played by Priyanka Chopra) is Vijay’s love interest and throws some naïve humor which is fairly enjoyable. 

Original Agneepath had running time of 174 minutes and this remake also has almost same duration. But times have changed. People don’t like 50 over game anymore. If the director wishes to make 3 hour long movie (without hiring editor) then he should be capable enough of delivering shocks and thrills. This one hardly has any.

Those who have habit to sit patiently for 3 hours to see a film which is devoid of “happenings” then they’ll surely enjoy Agneepath. It didn't work for me.