Agent Vinod is a no-brains caper that is confusing, politically inaccurate and doesn’t do any justice to Saif Ali Khan’s acting talents

Off the mark: Agent Vinod lacks the maturity expected in a film that took five years to complete

Daniel Craig needn’t worry. An Indian James Bond couldn’t quite earn his dry martinis, Aston Martins and women lurking under his boudoir’s satin sheets. Indeed, by comparison the previous millennium’s avatars of 007 had far more substance 
as well as style: read Jumping Jackflash Jeetendra’s espionage sleuthing in Farz and Adonis-like  Dharmendra’s gunflashing in Aankhen. Sorry to say, as the eponymous Agent Vinod, Saif Ali Khan couldn’t fit into the shoes of his seniors. As for giving the original British spy any faint signs of competition, just forget it.

The humongously-expensive Agent Vinod took almost five years, if not more, from conception to completion. Besides the mixed reviews, trade experts, at best, expressed uncertain feelings about the product. Some said the first day’s cash collections had been good, while another section was quite vocal about its disappointment with a thriller whose script was incoherent and patchy, globe-trotting whimsically between India, Russia, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Morocco and more.

In fact, the film had made more of a noise before its release because of a restaurant brawl which led to Saif Ali Khan’s arrest and release on bail. And second because of its ban (or ‘blacklisting’) by Pakistan. Its distributor in Pakistan said that he would not support a film which was aimed against his “country and religion”.

GETTING UNDER THE SKIN: Omkara was testimony to Saif Ali Khan’s acting prowess — and Agent Vinod is definitely not

This was to be expected since the script, co-written by director Sriram Raghavan, was out to make a cautionary drama about the consequences of ISI-sponsored terrorists exploding a nuclear ‘suitcase bomb’ in New Delhi’s Connaught Place.

Towards the closing reels, Raghavan’s script changes its mind and 
attempts to tell the audience that such bombings are actually manipulated by ‘hidden forces’ with vested business assets. 
Utterly confused and 
confusing, Raghavan, in seeking to politicise a ‘thriller’, has served a mess which lacks credibility or even that much-vaunted factor called entertainment.

Falling flat: Inanities like Kareena’s dance number don’t really add much to the film

At 19-reels — or two 
and a half hours — the 
spy thriller is much too lengthy, repetitive and tedious. And references to Bollywood vintage films and actors fall flat, like the agent informing one of his tormentors that his name is Vinod Khanna. Or in a stupor, singing a snatch of Amar Akbar Anthony. Funny? Hardly.

That the story of a RAW agent combating assorted terrorists went seriously awry is more than obvious. What isn’t is if Bollywood filmmakers wish to narrate stories about cross-border hostility and skirmishes, why do it with a forked tongue? The doublespeak is a must evidently because the producers don’t want to alienate a sizeable section of the potential audience, especially the cosmopolitan south Asian viewers settled in the UK and the US.

Most actors don’t want 
to get into ‘politics’ as 
such: Akshay Kumar had refused to mouth communal tinted dialogue for Ab Tere Hawale Watan. J P Dutta’s LoC: Kargil had made secular audiences uncomfortable and turned out to be a commercial disaster. To be sure Anil Sharma’s excessively jingoistic Gadar — a Partition era love story — turned out to be an exception rather than the rule, with the resounding flop of the same director’s Hero: Love Story of a Spy.

Jeetendra in Farz, in a better role than Agent Vinod

The point is that even 
a smidgen of political 
content has to be communicated in cinema with a sense of maturity and responsibility. When politics is merely cut-and-pasted to a plot which aims principally to vend thrills and spills, the result is Agent Vinod. It makes insinuations about an intellectual academic stereotype of New Delhi. It shows its heroine being involved in bombings in the UK, adopting a new identity as easily as changing her shade of lipstick.

Not surprisingly then, the annoying sections outweigh the appealing ones. This is a pity because Saif Ali Khan can 
be excellent when he wants to be — as in Omkara. But he is unbearable in his bid to become a hybrid version of Bond. The chances of a sequel are slim. Mercifully.

(The writer has been reviewing Bollywood for decades, has scripted three films and directed three 
others. Currently, he is working on a documentary and just finished a book of short stories.)