"Apne aap ko hamare hawale kar do!"
This dialog has been ringing in our ears from Mumbai, 1978 (original Don) to Berlin 2011 (Don 2). But something that added to the suspense yesterday, only made the audience laugh today.
Unfortunately the same has happened to good old Shah Rukh Khan.
Both the movies were over-hyped under-prepared offerings, much like a cake that is burnt from the outside and still raw from the inside.
Both were about Shah Rukh Khan the actor and the ego, definitely not about the story. One had super-glamour of Kareena Kapoor and the needless magic of special effects (some of them really good!). The other had Priyanka Chopra trying her best to give her best in a bit role, playing second fiddle to 'Don' SRK.
Finally both were seeking to bring in a new style of film-making into Bollywood.
But I think they failed badly. In case of Ra-One we were unable to find the common ground between a Hindi family drama about a woman loosing her husband and a sci-fi thriller about the fight between good and evil. Maybe such a common point exists, but definitely finding it would not be aided by all the attention going on a super-star actor playing the lead role.
In Don 2 things are bit more different. There the movie is about one person and everyone else plays second fiddle. There is a lot of forced style injection, most of it at the wrong place. All the 'action' sequences are old by about 3 years (even for Bollywood).
We can go on bashing both the movies but one common factor responsible for the failure of these movies is Shah Rukh Khan. He has grown too large for any role.
So what he needs is to destroy his own reputation and do some meaningful cinema. Which means (to put it simply) stop hyping his movies, concentrate more on the script and NOT his part in it. Something similar to how we cut a rose plant to encourage growth.
Maybe the first thing he needs to do is watch some of his older and more 'honest' works like Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman, Darr and Chak-de India.
Good luck SRK! Hope to see you back at your best in 2012!
:)
