Agneepath: Review cum Comparison

If you have not watched original Agneepath then the new one will have some standing. Original Agneepath is a cult movie although it failed to attract audiences when released in 1990. Agneepath 2012 is just another ordinary movie which attracted audience mostly because of the cult status of original one.

Story: The story is very similar to the original Agneepath, with some alterations in characters. In the  Agneepath 2012; Rauf Lala (Rishi Kapoor) has replaced 3 persons: Anna (Deepak Shirke), Terelin (Sharat Saxena) & Usman Bhai (Avtar Gill). There is no one in place of Krishnan Iyer M.A. (Mithun Chakraborty) in the new one.

Music: The music in original Agneepath is far better than in copy. In the copy the music is too loud.

Characters

Vijay Deenath Chavan: The character of Vijay in original was far more powerful and enchanting than in copy. The dialog delivery, body language, accent all accentuated the character, making Vijay larger than life. In the original, Vijay had lot of dialogs in comparison to the copy that helped him in creating a personality that was missing in the character of Hrithik.

Amitabh interaction with Commissioner Gaitonde (Vijay Gokhale) is magnetic on all the occasions coupled with powerful and crisp dialogs, body language.

In one scene Hrithik fails miserably in generating any emotions (assuming that scene was there to generate emotions) when he went to meet his mother & sister over a dinner, but in the original movie the similar scene played by Amitabh and Rohini Hattangadi is kind of perfect creating lot of emotions.

Hrithik personality seems to be emotionally very weak, on many occasions where he interacts with his mother, sister or lover he cries. A don with a mission in hand crying on many occasions fizzle the strength of the character.

Vijay in the original carries a rough and tough personality which goes with the Don character but same is not true with Hrithik where he looks too suave and sophisticated to enact a local don character.

Kancha: The only character in Agneepath 2012 who seems to equal or create a persona in comparison to Kancha in original Agneepath. In Agneepath 2012, Kancha seems to overshadow Vijay in every scene where they share screen even while being on gallows.

Rauf Lala: A strong role played by Rishi Kapoor. He is successful is creating a feeling of hatred and disgust for the character he plays (Girl seller).

Scarface & Original Agneepath:

They both are cult movie, with original Agneepath an adaptation or inspiration of Scarface. Some scenes are very similar in both.

Agneepath 2012 is a single time watch but not for the first day/weekend. Many who have not seen can see it online as it may be available after sometime.

Youtube Link to Agneepath(1990):  http://youtu.be/k1orBIrqITE

Review: Khuda Ke liye

“In the name of God“ (Khuda Ke liye ) is a hard hitting movie from Pakistani cinema. The producer cum director must have got real courage. The story starts with a band rehearing for a music concert on a New Year eve in Lahore, Pakistan, is unexpectedly attacked by a mob of radical Islamist. After this attack there are some more instances which help in putting through different kind of radical views setting proper background for the movie. The movie start on the slower side with even starring seems never ending but quickly picks up the pace. The director had wasted no time in coming to the main subject, quickly winding up the inter-linkages between different characters.

The story revolves around a family holding moderate Islamic view where 2 boys (“Mansoor” & “Sarmad”) of the family wear “Jeans”, “T-shirt” and had taken up singing as their profession. Sarmad younger of the two goes to visit Masjid where he meets “Maulana Saab” and comes face to face with the “real” Islamic views on certain aspects. Believing on the face values of those views that guy starts getting closer to “real” Islam.  On the other hand the second brother who sees religion more from a logical point proceeds towards USA to study music. Fate plays along and the brother with radical Muslim views marry her cousin sister, who is from London and is about to marry Dave (A Christian), without her consent under influence of “Maulana Saab”, while Mansoor falls in love with a Christian girl and gets married.  In between all these 9/11 had happened and story takes more interesting turns. I will leave the story here for you to follow it on CD/DVD or online.

At the far end of the movie there appears two (Hard and moderate) distinct views of Islam on many aspects of universal living principles. Naseerud din Shah plays a hard hitting cameo role and delivers dialog which delve into Islamic sense of dressing, music, girls marrying outside Islam and many more. The reasoning backed by strong dialog delivery produces a mesmerizing effect.

On the acting front, it is average performance by everyone except Naseeruddin Shah which is awesome. The dialog writer has done good job, with the witty and hard hitting dialogs on every point in the movie.

Overall the movie is a good watch, with Nasseruddin cameo can be applauded multiple times.