There is something missing in this new Don movie. I can't pinpoint it, but that void exists nonetheless.
Let me mention what I missed:
1) Firstly, SRK does not have the cold-bloodedness that Amitabh so brilliantly portrayed. SRK as Don is too excited, too flamboyant to be treated with respect. Amitabh on the other hand, was more businesslike, a la Michael Corleone of Godfather II. I would have appreciated if SRK would have exercised restraint, instead of behaving like a wayward James Bond.
2) The "khaike paan Banaras wala" song is a disaster. I felt I was watching "Nach baliye" rather than the clumsy yet adorable dance of a UP wala bhaiya. The 4-5 people behind SRK in jeans, possibly from Farah Khan's troupe, were perhaps too stylish. SRK, too, nowhere looked like a "Chhora Ganga kinare wala". UP people would have been thoroughly disappointed. I was.
3) I missed Pran. Nothing against Arjun Rampal, but Pran was the quintessential Bollywoodian character of the 70s. The kind of characters that people imitated in streets - their quirky style of dialog delivery, their outrageous outfits...Like Gabbar in an army uniform. Pran in Zanzeer as a fancy dress pathan. Asrani with the Hitler like moustache and a jailor uniform which belonged to the 1910s. Watch Pran say "Main tumse utni nafrat nahin karta jitna apne bacchon se pyar karta hun" and compare. Even Iftikhar had his absence felt. The police chief who looked more like a professor.
4) The mafia members in Farhan Akhtar's Don were like company vice presidents. I missed MacMohan, with his zebra like beard and Narang, with his piercing light grey eyes. Villains in 1970s looked like villains. I would have been happier if Farhan had opted for Sushant Singh or Mukesh Tiwari.
If I had my way, I would have made Don like Ram Gopal Verma. If I had to remake it at all. Don here would have been a semi-psychopath underworld leader, like Bhikhu Mahatre or Nana Patekar in Bluffmaster. He would have been replaced on his death by a "seedha sadha" clerk. But when this clerk gets the power & authority of Don in a very different environment from which he originally comes from, his dark side starts to take over. As he can do things which he could never have done as a less powerful clerk, the temptation becomes too difficult to resist. Roma realises that he is Vijay, and falls in love with him. But eventually, when she realises that Vijay is developing the same traits that she had hated so much, she kills him. Or maybe the character of Roma could have done away with entirely. The film would have most probably flopped, but I guess some critics awards could have been won. Comments invited.
