Saturday, September 07, 2013
Zanjeer
Plain Awful!
There are enough recent examples
to show that cult films should be left alone. But there will always be
foolhardy directors around, who think they can better a work that film buffs
remember with fondness.
Prakash Mehra’s 1973 film had a
Salim-Javed script that had given a fresh touch to what was even then a
formulaic revenge plot—their well-developed characters, crackling dialogue and dare one say, a
dash of the poetic to the unlikely romance between a troubled cop and a
streetsmart chaku-chhuri sharpener.
Apoorva Lakhia’s calamitous remake
retains the names of the main characters and some memorable sequences are
rehashed, but where he attempts his own
think, he makes an unholy mess. This
Zanjeer owes more to the loud Southern actioners that inspired films like Dabangg and Rowdy Rathore—all nuance flattened, all genuine emotions
jettisoned.
This Zanjeer has unforgivably
awful opening and closing credits with skimpily dressed girls gyrating, and
whenever the villain appears with his moll, some crass sexual innuendo follows.
If Lakhia had respectfully copied
Mehra’s film as it was, frame to frame, it probably would have been preferable
to this—and even then, a stone-faced hero (Ram Charan) with a a puff in his
hair is nobody idea of a man tortured by nightmares of his parents’ killing,
and Priyanka Chopra as the giggly Gujarati NRI is unmitigated disaster.
Inspector Vijay Khanna, who
smashes into criminals without fear of consequences, is kicked out of his home
state (Andhra) to Mumbai, where he runs into the oil mafia (they keep saying
mafias), led by Teja (Prakash Raj in a wardrobe worse than his
performance). On the way, he befriends
Sher Khan (Sanjay Dutt) and plays video games with him (really, now!)
Atul Kulkarni has the thankless
part of an investigative journalist almost always seen with a wide-eyed
assistant and a ‘Eureka’ expression. His murder in the film, and the burning
alive of a collector investigating the oil mafia, are inspired by real
incidents, but done very clumsily.
How can any director, with the old
Zanjeer as his template, ruin even iconic scenes like the Vijay-Sher Khan
confrontation in the police station and the fist fight in the street. Why on earth are Vijay’s idiot sidekicks
called Amar-Prem? Why did Lakhia reduce Ajit’s Teja to a clown? Why is Mona Darling (Mahie
Gill) so unappealing? A glimpse of the original Zanjeer being
watched by Teja and Mona on the television has more zing that this whole film
put together. Why, even the music is not a patch on the original
Kalyanji-Anandji soundtrack.
The next time any filmmaker thinks of
a remake, they must watch RGV Ki Aag and Apoorva Lakhia ki
Zanjeer, and halt right in their tracks.
Labels: Cinemaah
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