Agneepath Review

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Woah. At least one film knows what Bollywood masala is. Not Telugu masala. Bollywood masala. Ghajini, Wanted, Ra.One, Ready and Singham were either direct remakes or imitators of films like Endhiran, Pokiri and Ghajini. While I thoroughly enjoyed all of these, barring the downright awful Bodyguard, I didn't absolutely love them. Dabangg seemed to be the only "original" one.

One thing is becoming certain, violence is coming back to the Hindi cinema screen. While the end of the 90s and most of the 2000s were dominated by the Khans who did their chocolate boy films and ruled Bollywood with romantic sagas or family weepies. With Agneepath, violence has returned and is here to stay.

Agneepath is a film I unabashedly love. Yes, it is a remake of a Bollywood film. Obviously it has its origins firmly set in Bollyland. But Agneepath is not a direct remake of the original film. The outline of the plot remains the same but thankfully this film does away with it's Scarface (1982) influence. Yes the revered Mukul Anand film borrowed a lot from Brian De Palma's brilliant Scarface (1983). Although Scarface was more brutal, less sappy, it was also a remake. Scarface is actually a 1932 film made by Howard Hawks. I'd like to sound pedantic here and point out how Howard Hawks remade his own films and even copy pasted exact dialogues from his own films. Look what you started Mr. Hawks. The dominoes still seem to be falling.

(But if you examine Hawks' filmography, Hawks was making a very clever point by saying no two films can ever be the same, even if you have the same plot or dialogues or hell, the same filmmaker. Hitchcock was another genius who did this but in a different way.)

Agneepath, the 2012 film, is a balls-out masala film. Not chat masala. This is that red piping hot garam masala. You need to have a strong stomach to digest it. There is no romantic fluff. No girl to be swept off of her feet. This is not what the families going to the movies on a Sunday are looking for. There is nothing to make you feel good here. Nothing. But oh this is the good stuff. Even Ghajini and Dabangg, which I found better than all of the other commercial potboilers stated above, had love stories as a major chunk. But Agneepath has violence that has probably never been seen on the mainstream screens like this. While I'm a sucker for those family weepies and romantic fluffies from the late 90s (I grew up on them, got no choice but to love them). I do love it when the Indian audience just doesn't come to the theater to either laugh or cry. There are other emotions too. Feel them. (Don't go home and start acting on them. Please)

Now I will get into personal reasons as to why I absolutely loved Agneepath. (Commercial films can only have personal reasons for like or dislike, there's no way you can watch these films with an analytical mind). I believe if you are making a masala film you need to indulge. Indulge like it's extremely obvious, with no shame. There should be no reservations. Nothing should be compromised. (Same goes for an art film. The ones in the middle are the tricky ones, those are the great ones. But when that goes wrong you get a film like Rockstar, when it goes right you get Delhi Belly). And by "all out" I don't mean add 5 different types of masala. That's great. I like that too. But what I love is cinematic overdoses. One masala that dominates. Constantly. When you are so convinced about the kind of film you are making, you don't compromise. You are not stuck between two places. You want the audience to feel the fury, the intense pain and scream out for revenge.

Agneepath does exactly that. It attacks the senses. It submerges you in its wrath. Hell, it even blows up the sound system with an outrageously loud soundtrack. There is one hero and two villains. The hero is Hrithik Roshan, our very own Vijay Dinanath Chavan/ Chauhan. The Vijays played by Amitabh Bachchan and Hrithik Roshan are decidedly distinct with barely any similarity. While I wouldn't compare but I guess even Roshan knows you can't even come close to the powerhouse that is Mr. Bachchan. He doesn't try. A wise decision. Hrithik lends his own voice to the character of Vijay. We feel for this Vijay. He is not really an anti-hero in this one but more of a hero.

This is also aided by two wonderful characters who make the anti-hero more heroic than anti by just being bastards. The villains - Rauf Lala and Kancha (no Cheena?). The incredible performances of Rishi Kapoor and Sanjay Dutt. Not since Mr. India, Karma and Shaan, have we seen "THE VILLAIN" brought to screen like this. But we don't get one villan, we get two!! Oh this is a field day for any Bollywood lover. (In all fairness, Langa Tyagi was pretty rad). Thankfully, again, Sanjay Dutt doesn't try to ape the original Kancha Cheena. For the sole reason that the original Kancha wasn't even a good one. No offense to Danny Denzongpa. But it was kind of lackluster. Sanjay Dutt's Kancha is absolutely thunderous. There was no Rauf Lala in the original so Rishi Kapoor gets all the praise for being absolutely thunderous too.


One character who I would have liked to see in the remake was Krishnan Iyer. But I guess nobody could have done what Mithun did. Another wise decision. There is some emotional rona-dhona added. Although it was present in the original, I'm sure Mr. Karan Johar had a lot to do with the amplification. But it works. It helped me get emotionally vested in the film right during the prologue. The other little masala added was the item song. I'm not at all a Katrina fan. But boy was she amazing in this! Who thought she had those moves in her?!

The film has plenty of moments which make you want to applaud and whistle. (That's Bollywood! At least for me). There were two that stood out. (Spoilers) First, when Vijay saves his sister by levitating and firing the gun. Second, at the end of Deva Shree Ganesha, when Vijay finally unleashes the grand dialogue stating his father's name and hometown. WHAT A MOMENT! (End of spoilers). The third one is what I call the "DMD". Die, motherfucker, die. The "Climax". When you want the hero to rip the villain to shreds. If the film did not do this right, it would have been a cop-out. But the revenge comes in full glory here. Chills and all. Agneepath, agneepath, agneepath. In-fucking-deed.

From deciding to introduce the famous dialogue late in the film (the original didn't do this) to the inter-cut song sequences with plot developments (something that the original film did too). This is a worthy remake. Apart from it being a worthy remake, it is also a worthy film. One that actually pays tribute to the commercial Hindi cinema of the 80s and the 90s. Not the Telugu cinema of the 2000s (not that, that is a bad thing). Full marks to Karan Malhotra. For me, this was a grand way to start the Hindi film year of 2012. More power to Bollywood!