Cast: Hrirtik Roshan, Priyanka Chopra, Om puri, Sanjay Dutt, Rishi Kapoor.
Director: Karan Malhotra.
Length: 2.50 hours approximately
Its a challenge for any film-maker to keep their audience engaged and hooked in a silly story for almost three hours. In Karan Malhotra's AGNEEPATH, the story is puerile and I wonder how one can remake such stories. But of course, AGNEEPATH is not about story, its about the characters, their physical and political power, their anger, their gory life! Thus, if this new AGNEEPATH sails through, then it’s only because of the well written characters played ambitiously by likes of Sanjay dutt, Rishi Kapoor and Hrtitik Roshan.
For once, there's no story to speak of. The film goes on for 2.50 hours but the proceedings don’t have much of quantity in it. In-fact, the film could have been done away by trimming 30 minutes which would have only added effectiveness to the final product. But all said and done, even though it fails to match the cult status of the original, it still is an entertaining potboiler as a film. For one who did not see the original one will definitely start guessing what was so great about that one. But for one who has seen the original film can draw comparisons and can judge what exactly the difference is.
Even if its a remake to a film which released more than 2 decades back, the story still is outdated. The problem is that there's no agenda to reach the end. The writers do well for few parts, but they fail to extract emotions out of the story. The film has nail-biting first thirty minutes. But as soon as many characters are introduced in the story, the film looses the focus. It’s a good first half with scenes like the confrontation between Sanjay Dutt and Rishi Kapoor or the one when the junior Chauhan picks up the gun to shoot a sub-inspector. Karan Malhotra does very good job and he succeeds in keeping the intensity level in the right slot.
The second half too starts off well with the fight scene between Rishi kapoort and Hritik Roshan, also Chikni Chameli. But once the focus is shifted to Hritik and Sanjay, it looses its mark yet again, displaying incoherent shape of entertainment. Thankfully, the film gets on track in that climax after all the superficial cooking between the protagonist's family.
Hritik Roshan potentates the show with an superb performance and remains in sync throughout. Rishi Kapoor surprises the most with a fabulous act towered by fantastic look given. Sanjay Dutt is very good, though he does go over the top. Om Puri is very impressive. Priyanka Chopra gets too less in the film, but she does nothing above an ordinary work.
Action of the film is extra-ordinary. Special mention to background score who does excellent in their department and succeeds in raising the intensity of the atmosphere. Among the songs, "Chikni Chameli" is outstanding and "Gun Gun Guna" is also very good. The screenplay could have been better. The dialogues are so vital in such films, but here use of dialogues is not frequent.
Its an honest attempt and good work there by karan malhotra, but the editing backlashes and also he could have done better with emotional part which is mostly pretentious and slow. Still its a decent film, though not exactly satisfying. I recommend you to watch this film for four performances- Hritik, Sanjay, Rishi kapoor, and Om Puri. Also the action of the film is delight to watch. Go in as if you are watching a new film and not an remake to a cult film.
Rating- 2.5/5 (Above Average)
