Agneepath. Or, The Return of Mega Masala Bollywood.

I HAVE to begin this with an analogy. Agneepath is like masala chai. There is cinema which is subtle and nuanced. Like a perfectly brewed first flush, Darjeeling cuppa. And then there is that glass of kadak, dhabe-wali chai, robust and full-bodied and bursting with a million, loud flavors. That is the category this Dharma Productions fare belongs to.

The movie is a remake of the 1990 Amitabh Bachchan starter by the same name. Interestingly, the production house chooses to retain the time frame of the original instead of contemporizing it. It begins in 1977, in a small island off the Maharashtra coast, where a fiercely idealistic Master Dinanath Chauhan is trying to teach the important lesson of self-reliance to the exploited populace of Mandwa. The feudal structure obviously can't tolerate dissent and the schoolteacher is implicated in that most-heinous of crimes-the sexual abuse of a poor, polio-stricken, girl child. Three strikes. The man is brutally killed in front of his son and pregnant wife. And thus is born the avenging hero, the conflicted, complex, brooding Vijay Dinanath Chauhan. Destined to be eternally locked in battle with the menacing Kancha Cheena. 
    
Hrithik Roshan makes a handsomer Vijay than Amitabh Bachchan, for sure, but the baritone of the original was something else. The recital of "Agneepath", easily the high point of the Bachchan flick pretty much misses the mark here. Hrithik serenades the viewer with his beautiful green eyes, his emotive face and the extreme vulnerability that has been his trademark from his very first film. His nemesis, appropriately attired in black, represents the opposite bed of e aesthetic spectrum. Sanjay Dutt flexes his bulk, his tattooed arms, his padded-up face and produces an immensely repulsive villain. The other baddie is played by the one-time teen heartthrob, Rishi Kapoor, who throws off his charming persona and spouts dialogues about the nubility of under-age virgins, instead. He is creepy and sleazy and perfectly cast.

This then is the canvas of Agneepath. A movie with heroes and villains, each in their separate, pre-defined roles. It takes us back to an earlier age of Hindi cinema, one where the hero cannot die without fulfilling his raison d'être, the reason for his existence, no matter how many blows/bullets/knife-thrusts he takes. It isn't a movie that provokes thought or generates a discussion. It asks for complete suspension of disbelief and transports the viewer to a world that necessarily balances itself out at the end of the day. It makes Hrithik dance and Priyanka Chopra look pretty and Katrina Kaif defy each one of Newton's laws of motion. It showcases violence. There is blood and copious amounts of it. There are beheadings and gruesome murders and fires and explosions. And surprisingly, it all works together. Karan Malhotra, the director-protégée of the absurdly non-nuanced Karan Johar, has an interesting sensibility and manages to give this overly-dramatic film a cohesive, non-parodic structure.          

Agneepath brings back to life the early 90's over-the-top drama and does so minus the overt vulgarity and the aesthetically challenged colour schemes that defined the genre. If only it had wound up in 2 hours instead of the once-mandatory three, I would have been sitting in my seat, whistling, as the end credits rolled.