Don (2006)

[Drunk Monk]

Ok, I needed a little break from Bollywood and Akshay. But I was lured back through the looking glass by King Khan, that handsome megastar Sharukh, and Priyanka Chopra. It's a large as life and twice as natural.

If you don't know Sharukh Khan, you simply don't know Bollywood. Priyanka was sweet enough to treat me to an opening scene where she's doing some sort of shallow derivation of Shaolin Kung Fu. Don is a major ruthless crime boss, a bit of a stretch for Sharukh. He attempts his best Scarface, even imitating the hottub TV watching scene, but he's just too charming to pull it off. (although this role did earn him 3 best actor awards). Then there's a doppleganger plot twist (Bollywood is very fond of the doppleganger for some reason - maybe its so the lead can take on two roles and fill out 3 hours of movie). This allows for a more playful Sharukh, more akin to his typical roles, including a random dance scene where he gets totally lit on bhang (cannabis infused yogurt). This is one of my beefs with Bollywood. Beyond sword fights and bollywood dance numbers, my fav film scenes are hallucinations. Unfortunately, Bollywood has yet to deliver a decent hallucination scene, which shocks me as it is such a hallucinatory culture. The art, especially the divine art, is crazy trippy. And there's pot everywhere, woven into the very fabric of Shiva worship (the bhang is drunk at a Shiva celebration). I'm sure there's a great Bollywood dance number hallucination out there and won't rest until I see it. And if there's swords, well, I will not need to watch any more movies ever.

A lot of this was shot in Malaysia, in some really spectacular locations, par for the course for Bollywood. There's a great opening Navrati ceremony for Ganesh that really captures the insanity of Indian festivals. Kareena Kapoor is in this too, along with the ugliest nose in cinema, Om Puri (last mentioned in The 100 Foot Journey). The dance numbers are ok, not mindblowing. The fight scenes pale in comparison to Akshay. Sharukh reminds me of Tom Cruise sometimes in fight scenes - too busy lookin good.

Kareena's weird seduction scene with Sharukh
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Crime lair party (man, I want to go to one of these)
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There's a Don 2. Next on my list prolly....

[Drunk Monk]

This was very disappointing. Sharukh's character Don is a prick, so I wound up having no sympathy for him as the main protagonist. He's got this smarmy little evil laugh that makes you just want to smack him. It is a true sequel however, and picks up a few years after the first film, reuniting much of the previous cast. It starts out ok, all with that distinct cartoonish action and the 80s Bond love affair with exotic international locations (some really nice ones in this - Bollywood is good at that). Then, after the hour mark, it becomes a heist flick - NO MORE DANCES - I mean WTH?! There's some silly action pieces, some gun and fist fights, and there's a few signature plot twists, but nothing notable.