He's back! But is he better?

It is a thankless job to do a remake. No matter how much effort you put in it, everyone cosily makes the blanket judgement, “the original was far better”. So when happening director Farhan Akhtar decided to remake the 1978 cult classic “Don”, he should have seen it coming. The original, which starred India’s greatest star of all time, Amitabh Bacchhan, was an epoch making film of its day. Replacing him with today’s reigning king, Shah Rukh Khan, was a great first step. The rest… well, here it is.
Don is a much feared and ruthless, well, don, running a huge crime outfit and has been eluding police capture for a very, very long time. After many desperate attempts, Inspector D’Silva (Boman Irani) manages to get Don grievously injured, but decides against telling the world about it. Why? Because he happens to find an innocent village bloke named Vijay who happens to be Don’s spitting image. With all the right training, D’Silva transforms Vijay and sends him out as a mole to infiltrate the organization. But when D’Silva dies himself, carrying the secret to his grave, what’s gonna happen to Vijay aka Don, who both the police and members of his own outfit are after?
The good things first. As would have been expected, the look and feel of the film is an absolute stunner – its surprising how Indian films have reached near Hollywood quality on the production values on a fraction of the budget ($8 million). Gone are the disco beats, the bell bottom pants, and the long sideburns – the new Don, a pretty convincing Shah Rukh, with his designer glasses and leather outfits packs quite a punch. The music is very deliciously techno, and even though I’ve heard many dissenting voices, I felt the techno versions of the classic songs “Yeh Mera Dil” and “Khaike Paan Banaraswala” was arresting. And of course, Don’s women/ mistresses Kareena Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra couldn’t have been more ravishing.
So where does it falter? The script man! Farhan Akhtar seems to have faced the same problem that Bryan Singer was plagued with in this year’s “Superman Returns” – they were both so overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the project that these otherwise-fabulous directors let their grips slip. “Don” seems to be such a fanboy tribute, that’s its difficult to see it as a serious work of cinema. Farhan (son of Javed Akhtar, who wrote the original) tries to put in so many twists of his own, that many glaring plotholes are visible. And a running time close to 3 hours, things get so tedious at certain points that you begin to wonder whether it really is a thriller you are watching. Shah Rukh does a neat job on the whole, but really, can anyone possibly beat the charisma of Bacchhan? (He’s probably the only star in the world who is having 2 of his films remade while he’s still at the top of his game). It’s also painful to see such great veteran talent like Om Puri getting wasted in a menial role. Let’s hope Farhan goes back to making those small, thoughtful films like his unforgettable “Dil Chahta Hai” again, and leave the big budget stuff to someone else.
Critics have been unkind towards this remake, but then again, aren’t all remakes uniformly squashed? Don is definitely not a great remake, but it’s good to know that an entire new generation of Indians has been re-introduced to this iconic character, and quite appropriately on the Diwali / Eid festive season. I, for one, definitely felt goosebumps erupt when I heard Shah Rukh Khan repeat that oh-so-famous monologue, “Don ko pakadna mushkil hi nahin, namumkin hai” (“It is not just difficult to catch Don, it is nigh impossible”). Ah well, Farhan is a gifted filmmaker, he’ll get another chance to silence his critics… but you still regret on what could have been.