Money Well Spent


Very few action movies I've seen from India have entertained me as much as this movie. Directors try and try but seem very unsure of what is needed. Agent Vinod is much better. Some of the plot details are not new. I thought of Goldfinger on the way home as one of the first movies I saw with atomic bombs used to manipulate international finance. But Shakespeare said there are really only eight stories, and writers just fill in different details.

So many good actors in India just look useless in these types of movies. Saif does better than all but a couple.

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They only call it "class warfare" when we fight back!

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The slick action and stylish execution will set the new benchmark for bollywood which was filled with silly cartoonish action from movies like Dabang, Don, Bodygaurd and all the Rajni flicks.

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I think a lot of the areas of progress were not glaringly obvious. But I think maybe this director was willing to admit that India didn't invent action and therefore he had to learn from the most successful global directors. What is called "cartoonish" might be the guys who haven't the adventurous spirit to go beyond Indian standards and hope at least a part of the Indian audience will follow. What makes it more adventurous to ME is that this crew dared to expose themselves to comparison. They could have invented such an outlandish plot that there was nothing out there for comparison, but much in this plot has been done. So the movie is wide open to comparison. As I said, Goldfinger was one of the first, if not the first, to build a plot on the idea that a nuclear catastrophe could make crooks a lot of money. And other western directors haven't been at all shy in taking that premise again and again. The norm in INDIA would be to either eschew something with so many precedents; or for people to dismiss a movie that had predecessors, DESPITE the fact that other nations were equally willing to put out movies on the same premise. That's part of Indian insularity. The fact that it ONLY matters if an Indian director does it. If a British, Australian, German, or French director does it, "no harm, no foul". In all the "rip off" threads I've read since 2003, I've seen no apparent awareness that such "rip offs" are common throughout the world. But only Indian fans are ready to lynch a director for it.

Anyway, as I say, speaking only of movies from Indian sources, I've not often been this entertained. I dislike Tom Cruise movies, but I love Matt Damon movies, and this one was entertaining in that category.

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They only call it "class warfare" when we fight back!

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My observation is that a typical Indian moviegoer does not mind the loopholes in a Hollywood flick. But any Bollywood movie which tries its hand in anything non-desi, people start the postmortem with magnified lenses. Bond has been anything but a hallmark of a great cinema. So were MI series and other such clones. They all had silly loopholes as well as cinematic liberties of a gigantic proportion. Having said that, the fact remains that they all were entertaining and provided good doze of escapist cinema. Agent Vinod does all this and a bit more. Indian thrillers have been compromised on various levels for instance: Song and Dance, mandatory romance and a bit of melodrama. Raghvan has tried to do away with most of it like his 1st 2 films. Songs in AV are more like a background score. I accept Kareena angle could have been less melodramatic.

Its complex narrative style, too many characters( as per indian movie standard) and a bit dragging climax will not attract much praise from common Indian moviegoers. But some serious cinema lovers will definitely enjoy this honest effort by Raghvan and Saif.

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By my tastes, Bond flicks would have been better with hot dancing women. But I guess most Bond fans don't even think of that.

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They only call it "class warfare" when we fight back!

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Action in Don was pretty good in my opinion especially the fight choreography. I agree dabangg, bodyguard, singham had some horribly terrible action. But Don was very impressive.

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What I liked best in Don was Shah Rukh and Arjun fighting. I think up to that point that was the most fun fight to watch in Indian movies.

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They only call it "class warfare" when we fight back!

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AV action is superior to DON and DON2.

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it might be better than don but it isnt better than don 2, the car chase was lame, the first action sequence, the camera faced a different way to where it was happening. Whereas don 2 has brilliant cinematography and still the best fight scenes in Bollywood history.

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The movie had sloppy screenplay it doesnt keep you intrested and you cant even see half of the action sequences cause the camera is facing a diffrent way but saif was cool

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I don't know we watched the same Agent Vinod. Coz for me the camera was set where the action is. Let me be honest here. I watched Don2 on DVD and I could barely sat through the complete movie. It was hardly watchable :(

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