Agent Vinod

Rating : 6/10
Release Date : 23rd March, 2012
Time : 157 minutes
Director & Co-Writer : Sriram Raghavan; Co-Writer : Arijit Biswas; Music : Pritam
Starring : Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Prem Chopra, Ram Kapoor, Maryam Zakaria, Malika Haydon, Ravi Kishen, Gulshan Grover, Adil Hussain, Zakir Hussain, Lee-Ann Roberts, Vasilisa Petina

Its got the babes. The slickness. The world (India) threatening catastrophe to be averted. The villains, an apt mix of threatening & cartoonish. The locales. And, as in Bond films, the man whom the villains just refuse to kill. Our very own agent-hero.

The plot loosely links multiple villains and cities as a suitcase bomb (a nuclear device small enough to fit in a backpack) wends its way towards India. Agent Vinod and his cohorts arrive everywhere and help the bad guys in creating mayhem in the beautiful places – Riga, St Petersburg, Moscow, Morocco, Afghanistan, Cape Town, Karachi. The trail of destruction is unending. And Kareena uncannily pops up everywhere.

The story is thin. The action decent but we’ve seen it all before (car chases, fist cuffs, gun fights, hair raising motorbike rides). What saves the film is its sense of humour, it doesn’t take itself too seriously, the one-liners never stop. And the music suits the action, the background score or even the song sequences.

Whether its Saif’s impromptu dances when confronted with hidden cameras, his replies when asked his name (including a cheeky reference to Mahendra Sandhu), the critical roles played by Prem Chopra’s camel and mother, Kareena’s date in Riga with the head of security, and Saif’s turn as the Mallu while beating up a villain and later as his typical Delhi-ite response when the bed next door makes too much noise. It comes naturally, suits Saif.

Somewhere I cant help feel that it didn’t need so many locations, so many codes / tracks, so many villains (at the halfway stage, most people in the hall seemed confused) and that it deserved a better plot. However, Kareena looks great and Saif works as along with his funny side, he attempts to rescue damsels in distress, his country and the film…