Agneepath
Click to viewSing a happy tune! Before you gun down another dude....
Hrithik's latest finally popped up on cable (on the BW channel, but GUESS WHO JUST SUBSCRIBED???). Sort of regretful I didn't catch this one in the local Indian cinema before it disappeared, but our Indian cinema is sort of stinky and run down.
Anyway, this is a straight up manly men revenge picture for men. And did I mention men? Yeah, I know, there's poor old Priyanka Chopra in the "female best friend" role (she's singing to him in the video above). But the girl characters are mostly around to give the male characters (mostly Hrithik) something to be loyal to or seek bloody vengeance for).
Here's the setup: Baby Hrithik's dad is a well regarded teacher who runs afoul of the local crime boss and his bald son, Sanjay Dutt. And, no kidding, Dutt is a psycho who's mad at the world because as a kid, they TEASED HIM FOR BEING BALD. It's sort of funny because even on a crappy cable version, you can see where he's shaved his head. Anyways, he falsely accuses Hrithik's dad of a rape, and the town suddenly turns on him as a mob, and in a truly wrenching scene, Dutt's villain hangs him from a tree.
Hrithik and his preggers mom flee to the Big City, where Hrithik is soon working for the local crime boss, played by Rishi Kapoor. And I've got to explain, this is not the "sort of not so bad crime boss so you can excuse everything." This dude deals in drugs and sells kids to perverts. Yeah, creepy. Anyways, flash forward 15 years, when Hrithik is "27," and Hrith conveniently eliminates everyone in his path to the leadership of the gang, setting up a final confrontation with the original baddie (remember Baldie? He's still bald, and still waiting back on the island).
You're first question is gonna be: no, despite waiting three freaking hours, Hrithik does not dance in this one. They go to the lengths of shipping in Katrina Kaif for an item number, even though that chick can't dance (and is, annoyingly, in seemingly every Indian movie made nowadays).
There's some cool stuff along the way, like hijras (a sort of South Asian transsexual, though that's oversimplifying) who constitute clients for his girlfriend's beauty parlor who THEN outfit themselves with machetes to form an attack squad. There's a gorgeous Ganesha festival scene. And the performances by the character actors (Dutt, Kapoor, and Om Puri as the honest head of the police) are great fun to watch. And I actually liked Priyanka Chopra, an actress you usually bugs the hell out of me.
And as I said, the movie looks gorgeous. I hope they'll issue a Blu Ray soon. It's just not one I could imagine watching very often. Hrithik is cute as the dickens, but he barely smiles thoughout the whole three hours. Someone on the BW boards compared his character to the traumatized Meghna in Dil Se, which I think was very insightful. But unlike this movie, Meghna stood in for people who felt forced into a life of terrorism. This revenge thing is his character, Vijay's personal shit (I kept hearing the old Scans Daily snotty refrain about Batman, HIS PARENTS ARE DEAD!), and it was difficult for me to feel much sympathy.
Even if he is really cute.... :D
This entry was originally posted at http://tikistitch.dreamwidth.org/1611377.html. Please comment there using OpenID.