AGENT VINOD - Unravelling the Spider Web

Agent Vinod or A (gent) Vinod, sounds confusing..well, wait till you watch the movie and then decide. Did the movie live up to its hype, well, read on to make up your mind.

The movie starts in James Bond style, with the desert of death (Afghanistan) being shown in  all glory and Agent Vinod being beaten black and blue by the ISI agent 'Morka' or something like that. Vinod wins their confidence by revealing an Indian agent to them and then suddenly all hell breaks loose. Vinod beats up atleast 40 guys (sic), saves the Indian agent and somehow, 'Mujra' girl and escapes from the desert, in true James Bond style (meaning, blows up a few trucks carrying armed men and hey presto...

The narrator then goes on to explain how the break up of the soviet union and their corrupt generals are putting up tactical nuclear warheads for sale to the higest bidder, in this case, the Lashkar... They go on to explain the involvement of a large number of middlemen, russian mafia and so on who are a part  of this nexus (the mafia don Abu Khan - Ram Kapoor, The Colonel, Prem Chopra as Kazan, a business tycoon- Metla, Kareen kapoor as Dr Ruby Mendes a.k.a Iram Parveen Bilal, Rajat Kapoor as the ISI Chief, Morka as the Renegade ISI agent and a host of other characters...(which also includes Gulshan Grover). I have run out of breadth.

The story moves from Afghanistan-India- St Petersburg-Morocco(where a large part of the movie has been shot)- Riga- Karachi-Somalia ....phew...and back to India at breakneck speed, with never a dull moment. The story is quite simple - The terrorist have got their hands on a Nuclear bomb, the detonator is in a Omar Khayyam Rubyat and the book is for sale (lot 242) at an auction in Morocco. Vinod's mission is to find ther detonator and the bomb so that it can be neutralised. I shall leave it at that

The screen play is complex and so is the execution of the plot. The story has been worked out in detail, however, the time allotted 2 hrs and 40 mins approx, is not enough to make it understandable and coherent for the masses at large. What comes to the fore is all the action (the car chases, the hand to hand combats..) wherein, Vinod always manages to polish of foes with a ration of 1:20. Like I said earlier, the story is simple but the execution is complex, which actually makes you think about all what happened even after the movie for you to understand it. But one thing is clear-India has to be saved at all costs to avert a nuclear war between India and Pakistan.

The acting is quite so-so. Saif as Agent Vinod does not impress you as much as James Bond did. I think its largely because he tries to keep a wooden, expressionless face throughout trying to portray the tough RAW agent, and somehow does not connect with the audience. His seeming indestructability also makes the action sequence ho-hum.  Kareena looks confused about her role and she has no fire (like we are accustomed too from her). The Chemistry between Kareena and Saif is quite insipid and does not evoke any sympathy for her or them. Prem Chopra is menacing at times but loses the plot midway. The host of other baddies are efficient and do their job competently.

All in all, the movie is quite complex to follow. The director had a taut script and he has tried to incorporate all the logical steps in it, but in doing so, he has introduced a large number of characters, too many sub plots and two extremely avoidable songs. The action sequences like the car chase, fights etc are well done. The back ground music score has a nice rock feel and is edgy in the right places. The movie has been made in James Bond style (as we all lap up Bond films anyway) but without the suave edginess of  Craig, Pierce and Sean...

All in all - a decent time pass, but keep your wits about or else you shall not understand what happened. I would rate it a 2 1/2 stars as the much awaited film does not live up to the hype and leaves you generally confused and cold.

 **1/2