Rock on, Farhan!

The talented Mr Akhtar 
now has his sights set firmly on the Don franchise

After the yearlong, deafening buzz on Ra:One, Don 2 is in the news today. And it isn’t solely for the fact that it is Shah Rukh Khan’s second release of the year. To be premiered worldwide on December 23 — in time for the Christmas week — it’s the fourth film directed by Farhan Akhtar, arguably the most urbane and technical-savvy director on the scene today.

Every project helmed by the 37-year-old director is expected to be several cuts above the commonplace, even if it’s a remake of a vintage cops-and-robbers thriller. Akhtar’s Don, released five years ago, was an acknowledged update of the 1978 Amitabh Bachchan film, co-scripted by Javed Akhtar. It didn’t quite match up to the Bachchan film. The vintage song, Khaike paan Banaraswalla, was redone but lacked the original’s dynamic choreography.

Despite the mixed reviews accorded to Farhan Akhtar’s Don: The Chase Begins (2006), the disappointingly disjointed remake was commercially successful. Bingo, instantly a sequel was in the works. Believe it or not, a third Don by the director has already been announced. If there can be follow-ups to the James Bond, Superman and Spiderman blockbusters, why shouldn’t Don return to the screen again and again? Evidently that’s the logic of Akhtar and his friend-cum-producer partner Ritesh Sidhwani. Good luck to them.

For over a year, Don 2 has been shot in Berlin, Malaysia and Mumbai. The Shah Rukh Khan-Priyanka Chopra pair has been retained, supplemented with Lara Dutta. The hair extensions worn by SRK have been widely publicised. And the double role of the eponymous Don — one virtuous, the other evil — has been played up on the posters. Yet, you can’t help feeling that the director is in his best form when he tackles original, youth-centric subjects 
the way he did in his debut feature Dil Chahta Hai (2001). A major part of 
the script, revolving around three temperamentally different friends, was quite frankly autobiographical. It remains Farhan Akhtar’s most accomplished work to date.

Undoubtedly, there has been a remarkable amount of multi-tasking. Revealing an unsuspected gym-toned body, he carried off a tough, emotionally complicated act as the leading man as well as playback singer for the campus favourite, Rock On (2008). Nostalgia, a yearning for romance and regret over innocence lost are his calling cards. The characters who people the plots he has been involved in replicate him in real-life: outwardly confident with an under-layer of anxiety.

That could be because his sister Zoya and he were raised by his mother Honey Irani after her divorce from Javed Akhtar. During his growing-up years, Farhan aspired to make a mark in the same field as his father. To start with, he assisted cinematographer Manmohan Singh on Yash Chopra’s Lamhe (1991); and assisted Pankaj Parashar, the erratic director of Himalay Putra (1997).There isn’t a perceptible influence of Javed Akhtar on the son’s film, except perhaps a fun-time childhood memory which led to the remaking of Don.

Mother Honey Irani, former child actress who took to scriptwriting, has never focused on individualistic women in either her scripts or Armaan (2003), the one film she directed. Neither has Farhan: his men are always in centre-camera. After all, it’s financially risky to opt for women-centric cinema. A pity that, because Farhan, as the son of a broken marriage, could have invested emotion in a subject dealing with the shifting man-woman equations.

Expectations had 
soared for the Farhan Akhtar-directed Lakshya (2004), a moralistic yarn about a good-for-nothing young man who finds a lifetime goal on joining 
the Indian army. The first half of the film was absorbing, the second half infuriatingly dreadful.

As an actor, he has a goodfella-well-met presence. After Rock On, he was absolutely convincing in his sister’s Luck By Chance, enacting the part of a Bollywood struggler who sells his soul till he gets his comeuppance. More recently, he was impressive in his sister’s Zindagi Na Milege Dobara (2011). While acting, he minimises the glamour quotient; he’s remarkably natural. In Karthik Calling Karthik (2010), too, he had slipped into the skin of the personality of a schizophrenic who strives, helplessly, to control his mind.

In person, Farhan’s a cool, easygoing guy who makes it to magazine covers. You only regret that he could be way more adventurous with his movie projects. He can afford to take risks, rewrite the formulaic rules, and get uncompromisingly real. Till then, Don 2, the chase continues.

(The writer has been reviewing Bollywood since he was in diapers. 
He has scripted three films and directed three others. Currently, he is working on a documentary and a book of short stories.)