Agent Vinod (2012)

Touches You

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

best movie i've ever seen.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Agent Vinod was an attempt which was wasted by weak direction and poor script. It focused more on the production values rather than content of the film.Pakistan ISI agent is planning to implant bomb in the heart of New Delhi. Only one man , can stop this –Agent Vinod(Saif Ali Khan). Time is clicking and he must swing into action with help of another Pakistani agent ( Kareena Kapoor) , who was wrongly accused in a London Blast some time back, to save the city before the terrorists turn it into ruins.I have been an immense admirer of Director Sriram Raghavan's early work(Ek Haseena Thi , Johnny Gaddar) but I was disappointed big time with this flick. His style of direction is more of thriller with twist in the end which is clearly missing here. Even loose screenplay couldn't salvage the film from being boredom. Cinematography was enthralling. The film has been shot in amazing parts of the world. Coming to performances , Saif Ali Khan is decent but not effective. Even Kareena was just about okay. Music is very nice with "Pungi" song being the best among others. Overall , I was not satisfied with the end result. After making this film for 2 years , the team should have focused more on script and direction rather than spending huge amount of money on the production. Disappointing- 2/5

There was a lot of hype of Agent Vinod in all the Indian cable channels and the songs were all pretty catchy and was soon part of the local channels play-list.I had to stand in a queue to get my tickets for the movie however the movie was very disappointing and tried its best to emulate a Jason Bourne/James Bond styled flick and severely disappointed. the action could have been better as i tend to compare it with the action in Don 2 which was really top notch for a Bollywood flick. Agent Vinod has its ups and a majority of downs as it never really built on anyone's character.Wait a couple of months and the movie will be shown in cable, not worth buying a ticket for this.

If a movie is to be considered good, it should qualify for that as a whole. If certain (or even all) parts of the movie are good but they do not work together in tandem with consistency and harmony to provide a satisfactory experience to the spectator, the movie cannot be admired. This is what has happened with Agent Vinod. It has great action and thrill, a very good entertaining song (in the style of Bollywood during the sixties to the eighties), admirable performances from the lead actors and finally a very good story with an impressive climax lasting for 20-25 minutes. There are many skilfully executed scenes in the movie (alongwith certain childish sequences as well). All the same, I won't consider it as a brilliant entertainer. It's just an above average movie, something that we did not expect when a talented director like Sriram Raghavan was behind the camera and a talented actor like Saif Ali Khan was in front of the camera. It's a let down from the Saif-Raghavan duo who had delivered a brilliant thriller like Ek Hasina Thi (2004) from the Ram Gopal Varma Camp.Agent Vinod, as the name suggests, is the story of an agent of the Indian Intelligence (RAW, to be precise) who gets an assignment to dig out the circumstances in which another agent (Ravi Kishan) had lost his life. The investigative and daredevil activities of this agent, Vinod (Saif Ali Khan) brings him into contact with a pretty but daredevil (like him) girl, Ira Parveen (Kareena Kapoor). There are several baddies in the scenario, coming across whom the adventures of these two unearth the plot of a nuclear explosion. Finally, the hero succeeds not only in preventing the nuclear explosion but also in reaching the real planner of these events whose wicked activities are hidden from the eyes of the world.The narrative of Agent Vinod moves through several countries (even my counting failed) and contains several blows and counter-blows between the goodies and the baddies with countless heads rolling in the process. As per my understanding, the intelligence agents or the spies are trained in such a way that they rise above emotions and not moved by mishaps in the lives of the individuals (whether in own life or in the lives of the other ones). However our filmwaalas are yet to come out of the earlier era and the old-fashioned sentimental twists are still kept to tone down the profoundness of the story (and play with the sentiments of the Indian viewers as well).The narrative is fast-paced, no doubt but this pace does not allow the viewer to understand the movement of the story and the meaning of different things shown on the screen in a proper way. Events running on the screen are known to the director because the film is nothing but a realization of his vision only. However my dear Mr. Sriram Raghavan, they should be understood by the audience too whom the movie is ultimately meant for. And that's why when the mastermind is unmasked in the ending reel, it does not look convincing because even the most intelligent and logical viewer cannot connect him to the baddies that had already come before him in the movie (and cannot make out the connection of the baddies among themselves also). Should we believe that a sovereign country like Pakistan and its intelligence wing, ISI work for an individual who has his own axe to grind through their operations ? Too far-fetched. Putting it straight, the many good parts of the movie do not act together to make the movie impressive and entertaining as a whole.The movie boasts of a huge production value and the different locales of the many countries involved have been portrayed beautifully on the screen. Technical aspects are superb except the editing part. The movie is just too long and that's why starts boring the viewer. It should have been short by at least 15-20 minutes. Action sequences and thrills (especially in the final reels) are the essence of the movie. The final phase of the movie (final 20-25 minutes) is the most interesting and gripping part of it.As far as the music composed by Preetam is concerned, it's according to the mood of the movie. I won't term it as excellent. Only the Mujra song picturized in the old fashioned way is impressive in listening to as well as watching on the screen. And quite interestingly, Maryam Zakaaria looks better than Kareena Kapoor in that song.Performances are praiseworthy. Saif Ali Khan is a very good actor who has groomed himself to such an extent that he can fit the bill for any role. He is the heart and soul of the movie and the movie deserves a watch for his fans. Kareena Kapoor has also done well alongwith her pretty looks though her character confuses at many places. She dies in the end because our filmmakers are still not gutsy enough to show an Indian Hindu male marrying a Pakistani Muslim girl. The supporting cast is routine. My final words - Agent Vinod is strictly a one time watch and that too for the action-loving audience. It's a collection of some good parts which do not sum up to a coherent whole. Frankly speaking, this movie, in its major part, is just like a jigsaw puzzle which instead of entertaining the viewer, leaves him mentally exhausted in trying to join its pieces together in the correct way.

Despite having found the 2009 teaming of real life Bollywood power couple Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor in the terrorist Thriller Drama Kurbaan to be a paring that killed off any promise that the paternally exciting screenplay had to offer.I decided,that since having heard the this film was a "dream project" for Saif,and that it was being directed by the man behind the highly praised Film Noir Johnny Gaddaar,I felt the there was a good chance that this Bollywood " Masala" 007 style film would offer some terrific thrills and a gripping,undercover spy storyline. The plot:After having escaped from a Taiban camp in Afghanistan,RAW (Indian secret service) Agent Vinod heads back to his headquarters in India,where he is told that his next mission is to find a man who murdered a fellow RAW agent in Russia,and who also has a scorpion tattoo and has some strange connection with the number "242".Rushing round in Russia,Vinold eventually finds out that a man called Freddie Khambatta is meant to be delivering 50 million to a powerful Mafia boss in Morocco.Relaxing on his flight to Morocco,Vinod is left dumbfounded,when he discovers that Freddie Khambatta is working as a stewardess on this very flight!.Using his charms to win the trust of Khambatta,Vinod sneakily decides to take Freddie's identity,so that he can meet the cities local Mafia boss:David Kazan.Initially being terrified of Kazan sniffing out his cover,Vinod is almost caught out when Kazan's personal doctor, called Ruby Mendes (who actually works for the Pakistan secret service ISL),injects Vinod with some chemicals that force him to give all the real details.Realiseing that his life is hanging by a thread,Vinod quickly shows all the stolen document proof the he can get his hands on,to prove that he really is Freddie Khambatta.With showing good imitative and also having a huge amount of luck,Kazan falls for his alibi and begins to show Vinod the "explosive" secret behind the number 242.View on the film:Looking at the main performances in this film,I was extremely disappointed to discover that despite filling dozens of magazines with their real life romance,Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor leave any signs of a sizzling chemistry completely off the screen,with the dozens of scenes that they both share lacking any sense of a "spark".Whilst the film was pacifically tailor made for him,Khan sadly gives a very wooden performance as Vinod,with the scenes of the agent risking his life to find out the truth behind "242" lacking any feeling from Saif of excitement or intense fear of being Vinod's cover being blown at any given moment.Although Manish Malhotra's excellent costume design allows Kapoor to wear some eye-catching costumes,her flat performance sadly stops any of Ruby's fun flirtyness or paternally thrilling espionage skills to fully blossom in the film.Despite the two lead performances not having a strong,confident presence which is usually expected in epic Spy films,Prem Chopra shows that he can steel the film from right under everyone's noses.For his performance as Kazan,Chopra cleverly mixes the characters ruthlessness (such as killing his own, beloved camel!) with a strong comedic side that helps to light every scene that he features in,with the scenes of him attempting to develop a "closeness" with Ruby being a particularly hilarious highlight.Using the "242" mystery as a Hitchcock style mcguffin for the film,writer/director Siram Raghavan at first shows signs that he is impressively going to mix James Bond style action with a Hitchcock Thriller edge.Sadly as the film plods along on its overstretched 2 and a half hour running time Raghavan gradually starts to show a clear lack of focus,as the initially intriguing mystery Thriller side disappointingly becomes a tangled mess,as Raghavan seems to spend more time focused on changing the films location every 5 minutes then he does from stopping the mystery side of the film from ending up as a flat-line.Despite the action scenes weirdly only being in short bursts ,Siram uses the scenes to put his fantastic,stylish directing on full display,with a mesmerising,uninterrupted 3 and a half minute,one shot shoot out scene displaying the excitement and stylishness which should have been featured in the whole film.