Watched it on DVD last night and was completely taken aback by how horrendous SRK is as DON. It's almost like he walked straight into the movie off KANK's set and forgot that he was playing a DIFFERENT character. These are the characteristics of Srk's DON: VERY irritative, angry, rude and oh yeah, sarcastic!(Does this remind you of somebody?? ). Add in SRK's decade long mannerisms that are very much present throughout the reel and this EASILY becomes the most disappointing performance from a MAJOR star in the last few years. Because of him the 1st hour of the movie is unbearably BAD. Every scene is there to present us DON's power/smarts/ruthlessness/coolness(nonexistent) etc. Yet these scenes are as pedestrian as it gets. Srk BY NO MEANS has the look nor the attitude to pull off this character. So what does he do? Gives his KANK character some psychotic tendencies(think Darr/Anjaam) and BOOM, that's your DON while he's fighting/escaping/murdering/charming. Every scene that's supposed to define THE DON falls flat. Some are embarrassingly bad. Like the ones w/ Kareena when he's mouthing off Big B's timeless dialogs. I don't know WTF Farhan was thinking while OK-ing the shots here. One can only imagine Big B's reaction while watching the movie. I'm assuming he came close to dying w/ laughter because SRK comes off so darn incompetent at playing this legendary character. And since everything revolves around him at the beginning, the movie looks quite hopeless too!
Not until the story gets a little more complex(happens when Vijay returns as DON) did I finally begin to get interested and we're already like 90 minutes into the movie! SRK becomes more tolerable as VIJAY because he's no longer playing Dev Saran....err....I mean DON but more of what he usually does. Although DON's characteristics peek into VIJAY's persona every now and then, which made the Usual Suspectsesque ending very obvious for ME to predict. At first I thought this was simply BAD acting on SRK's part(not the 1st or last time he'd been doing in in this movie), but soon realized even he isn't this bad. The USesque twist is something I could foresee because we're NEVER shown Vijay preparing to be like DON. So when the fake Vijay is getting all fancy while fighting(when did he learn??) and so effortlessly pinning down DON's mannerisms when we're shown at the beginning how 'different' Vijay is....i knew it. And I knew it for CERTAIN after SRK's reaction to finding out that Boman Irani's character is still alive. That was a dead giveaway!
Problems w/ DON aside from SRK? Well, like Farhan's Lakshya this one too suffers from not being able to involve you emotionally. I sat for 3 hours(btw, movie is 30-45 mins. too long) w/o giving a sh*t abt anyone. Character development(Rampal, female characters, OM Puri etc) is nonexistent. Guys go in and out of the movie w/ little to no background. The movie's got no heart. Farhan obviously spent way too much time on the look of the movie instead of the script. It also wouldn't have hurt if the SUN made an appearance every now and then. So much of the movie's shot outdoors and it's always overcast/glum. Made the already dull/soulless movie appear even duller.
Boman Irani probably gave the best performance of the lot. Although even he isn't that good and his character sketch is fuzzy at best. Everybody else ranges from average to bad. A below average movie overall. I can see Y critics completely rejected it. Best part is the middle when the story gets interesting and SRK is neither DON or Vijay but himself. Tells you all you need to know abt his limited range as an actor.
Not until the story gets a little more complex(happens when Vijay returns as DON) did I finally begin to get interested and we're already like 90 minutes into the movie! SRK becomes more tolerable as VIJAY because he's no longer playing Dev Saran....err....I mean DON but more of what he usually does. Although DON's characteristics peek into VIJAY's persona every now and then, which made the Usual Suspectsesque ending very obvious for ME to predict. At first I thought this was simply BAD acting on SRK's part(not the 1st or last time he'd been doing in in this movie), but soon realized even he isn't this bad. The USesque twist is something I could foresee because we're NEVER shown Vijay preparing to be like DON. So when the fake Vijay is getting all fancy while fighting(when did he learn??) and so effortlessly pinning down DON's mannerisms when we're shown at the beginning how 'different' Vijay is....i knew it. And I knew it for CERTAIN after SRK's reaction to finding out that Boman Irani's character is still alive. That was a dead giveaway!
Problems w/ DON aside from SRK? Well, like Farhan's Lakshya this one too suffers from not being able to involve you emotionally. I sat for 3 hours(btw, movie is 30-45 mins. too long) w/o giving a sh*t abt anyone. Character development(Rampal, female characters, OM Puri etc) is nonexistent. Guys go in and out of the movie w/ little to no background. The movie's got no heart. Farhan obviously spent way too much time on the look of the movie instead of the script. It also wouldn't have hurt if the SUN made an appearance every now and then. So much of the movie's shot outdoors and it's always overcast/glum. Made the already dull/soulless movie appear even duller.
Boman Irani probably gave the best performance of the lot. Although even he isn't that good and his character sketch is fuzzy at best. Everybody else ranges from average to bad. A below average movie overall. I can see Y critics completely rejected it. Best part is the middle when the story gets interesting and SRK is neither DON or Vijay but himself. Tells you all you need to know abt his limited range as an actor.