Lots of 'Agni' in 'Agneepath'....

Here's the pic from the Governor's 'At Home'. The gracious lady is the Governor's wife,Radha. I have received a wonderful letter from the Guv himself. I'll post it here tomorrow. Umesh Kashikar, who is the Guv's P.R.O , has forwarded it to me... and I appreciate the effort greatly.

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Kya good-looking hai hum!

Hrithik Roshan has no business being this good looking! Really! It is these very God-given looks that have become a bit of a liability for the poor man. Yes, one can always say, “Get over it ”. But that doesn’t happen easily. In an earlier hit (“Zindagi….”), Hrithik’s Greek God appearance worked for the character and mood of the movie. Distracting, but apt. In ‘Agneepath’, it’s harder to focus on Hrithik playing Vijay Dinanath Chauhan ( tch-tch… that should have read : Chavan) , simply because he looks far too posh for the role. Put the man in a shabby ganji, locate him in an overcrowded chawl, he’ll still resemble a poster boy for the good life – an Armani model slumming it over the weekend just to check what life is like on the other side of the railway tracks. I have yet to meet a Maharashtrian man who looks anything like Hrithik ( and it isn’t just about those blue-green eyes, or carefully blond-streaked hair).Then comes the performance. Again, it’s hard not to compare it to not-so-handsome Amitabh Bachchan’s original Vijay, with burning coals for eyes and that exaggerated gravelly voice. Hrithik’s interpretation is a more nuanced one – brooding, intense, not half as volcanic.It’s easy to fall in love with Hrithik’s Vijay – it’s a wonder the evil Kancha ( man mountain Sanjay Dutt) doesn’t flip for him!So, does the film work for today’s audiences?Forget the staggering box office records for the moment. The answer is ‘Yes’. And I say this after having shut my eyes and blocked my ears through all that blood-and-gore ( it is one of the most stomach churning films in recent memory, replete with sadistic, graphic close- ups that I couldn’t handle). It is also very dated , with an ambiguous time frame. This may be the reason why it works – with all that rona-dhona, honour, glory, revenge masala we used to lap up decades ago. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if nostalgia for an old-fashioned genre that once defined Bollywood stages a triumphant comeback after this blockbuster. No special effects, no 3-D. Just heavy duty melodrama. And one truly ridiculous scene of Zarina Wahab delivering a baby. Zarina!! But the undisputed superactor in this colourful retelling of an old film is Rishi Kapoor, whose curled lips and heartless sneers speak a new language of polished villainy. Rishi’s Rauf Lala steals the show effortlessly, reminding us once again that genius is all in the genes.
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George Clooney and Hrithik Roshan suffer from the same problem – both make the cut as ‘The Sexiest Men Alive’. Trust me, that’s a serious handicap. If Clooney does win the coveted Best Actor Oscar for his role as Matt King in ‘The Descendants’ it would be for playing a cuckolded husband – which woman in her right mind would cheat on someone who looks like Clooney? Geddit?? It’s Bollywood’s way of telling George, “It’s okay, dude. We forgive you for being so blindingly attractive!” It’s poor Brad Pitt’s problem as well. What can these actors do? They are brilliant at their craft. But nobody wants to look beyond their obvious sex appeal. Tough, huh? Well, a guy’s gotta do, what a guy’s gotta do. Good luck, George. About the movie, it belongs to three people – Robert Forster, playing Matt’s father-in-law,Shailene Woodley playing Alexandra, Matt’s troubled teenage daughter, and Nick Krause as Sid, Alex’s chilled out boyfriend. Clooney is a bonus!