Well as I said, I am in rustic Rajasthan and here I am watching films set in glazzy locations. But if anyone requires a one line advice on whether to go for DON or JAANEMANN, I would vote for JAANEMANN.

I am feeling strange saying this because I have been a Shahrukh fan all my life and thought that Salman can’t act. However here he does come up with a brilliant performance and manages to impress me.

JAANEMANN is strange film. The director Shirish Kunder (Farah Khan’s husband) is strange man indeed. He is a true all rounder and handles the hat of writer, editor, director and background music composer. Kunder uses visual images as metaphors and fuses fantasy and reality. Kunder presents songs in a very new, fresh way, which takes the story forward. He uses background music intelligently.

The film starts on an interesting note. And first hour is immensely watch able. However thereafter the story drags and by the end of the three hours you start suffocating for fresh air. The plot is wafer thin, in one line it is the story of a ex-husband who helps his shy friend woo his ex-wife to escape from paying alimony but in the process falls in love with her again.

All performances are good in whatever the thin plot demands of them. Salman as Suhan is fabulous and this time he also carries the emotional scenes through without going over the top. Askhay, as the geek Chimpu, is his usual good self and does enough justice to his supporting role. Preity Zinta is used as a doll and the baby (salman and priety’s daughter) wins most of the scenes. Anupam Kher as Salman’s dwarf sidekick does a decent job but has most of the jokes directed at him(sad!!!) and also the dwarf stuff is not handled well technically.

Music is situational and some tracks like ‘Ajnabi Sheher’, ‘Humko Maloom Hai’ are very likeable but Farah Khan’s choreography lacks anything novel and the Karan Johar style dances could be done away with considering they look so hackneyed.

Technically the film is outstanding, just like DON and a little thin plotwise again like DON. But unlike DON it’s a little more entertaining and the characters have a semblance of emotional depth.

Watch out for Shirish Kunder in the future

What a contrast, I am in Rajasthan , soaking in the rustic setting and I have this free time on hand. So caught up with DON and Jaaneman both set in suave foreign settings. Came out a bit disappointed though.

Frankly when I heard that Farhan is making a DON remake, I had thought ‘Farhan ka motive samajhna mushkil hi nahi namumkin hai’. I saw Farhan as a trendsetter and yes he has set a remake trend this time but I seriously don’t know how much this moves the industry forward because DON wasn’t a classic by any stretch of imagination. But I guess he did it to fulfill his dad’s unrequited vision of a grandiose setting for the original DON.

For the uninitiated DON is about top mafia man Don (Shahrukh Khan), who heads a drug trafficking business from Malaysia, gets seriously injured in the police chase and is replaced by a village bumpkin look-alike Vijay by police commissioner DeSilva (Boman Irani) to find out root of the gang. Unfortunately the twist in the tale arises when D Silva is killed during a raid and now the secret about Vijay’s true identity is buried with him. And Vijay lands in trouble with both the police and mafia after him.

There’s no easy answer to, how much further has Farhan Akhtar taken the Bachchan flick? Outwardly this version of DON is slicker than anything Farhan or his chic ilk have ever attempted. The film’s emphasis on technical detailing hampers the audiences’ journey towards the characters. The characters are not detailed and drawn out as seen in the original where each character had their own shades. So there is little emotional depth and lot of glazzmattaz

On the acting front only Boman Irani as D Silva and Diwakar Pundit impressed me. I didn’t quite understand whether Shahrukh starred as Don or the Don starred as Shahrukh but its enough to say that I missed Shahrukh from Swades where he underplayed himself. I wished he did that more often. Priyanka as Roma, Isha Koppikar as Anita and Kareena Kapoor as Kamini pretty much stick to their profile. Nothing to write home about. Arjun Rampal as Jasjeet is plain disappointing though

About the music, though we have a couple of good songs like Aaj ki raat and the title track but the ‘autoriksha beats’ of khaike paan … really knocks of any points earned by them.

Full marks to Mohanan, the DOP, who does a perfect job to get all the right chic tones. Watch out for him.

All in all, I am praying that Farhan doesn’t go the Karan Johar way. We have enough of over-the-top, stylized directors. What we need is real substance. Fingers crossed.