Film: Zanjeer
Director: Apoorva Lakhia
Prakash Mehra's Zanjeer
(which was made in a much simpler time when it was acceptable to
see an angry young man take on an army of goons), charted a path for
Amitabh as the angry young man, gave Pran yet another unforgettable
role as Sher Khan and was laden with heavy duty dialogues and story
of the hit duo Salim-Javed. Apoorva Lakhia's re-make, starring Ram
Charan, is simply a loud, confused tale, oscillating between the
genre of the angry young man and the new-age Dabangg sensibility.
The adapted screenplay,
written by Suresh Nair and the director himself, doesn't deviate much
from the plot structure of the original, save for setting the film in
contemporary times (something that the re-hashers of Agneepath
did not do). The protagonist, Vijay Khanna, who is tormented by the
same dream of a masked murderer on a horse, kicks the chair and says
“yeh police station hai, tumhare baap ka ghar nahi. Jab tak
baithne ke liye kaha na jaye, chup chap khade raho” and has the
swagger of a young man whose blood is boiling. However, this, and
many more parallels that are subconsciously made by everyone who has
seen the original, make Lakhia's film look like a cheap imitation.
Prakash Raj, who
re-creates Ajit's character on screen, is reduced to a comic relief
element for almost the entire first half. His opening scene, which
shows him slit a man's throat after a house-servant whispers “Sir,
gaddaar Shaun hai” in his ears, makes him appear more amusing
than intimidating. Majority of his scenes are laden with unnecessary
sexual overtones and see him reduced to a joke. Similarly, Mahie
Gill, who plays Mona, is a colossal waste of a talented actor, as she
moans and grunts her way through dialogues that add absolutely no
substance to the film.
The only plus point of
the film is Ram Charan's physique, which for the first time, allows
the angry young man to take off his shirt and not look like a
malnourished child from Sudan (apologies to AB of 40 years ago).
Priyanka Chopra too is reduced to a good looking girl, who is just a
narrative tool for a few moments of romance and intimacy.
The lesser said about
Sanjay Dutt's Sher Khan, the better. Comparison with Pran is a sin we
aren't willing to commit. But getting to re-live those lines itself
would have been a good experience, had Dutt not spoiled it with his
monotony.
Having made this film
when police officer protagonists are selling like hot cakes, Zanjeer
struggles to find its identity as whether it wanted to be a
re-creation of the seventies' sentiment or a remix, which
incorporated the story in today's age of Singham and Chulbul Pandey.
The film doesn't actively
bore you, but leaves you with nothing to cherish. And if by the end
of the first half, you're still not sure if this is a remake, Mahie
Gill says to Prakash Raj, while watching Ajit and Bindu in the
original Zanjeer, “Tumhari personality kitni milti julti
hai.” Well, you decide.
Rating: 1 out of 5
Published in DNA (Pune) on September 7, 2013
