Zanjeer: Movie Review

Starring: Ramcharan Teja, Priyanka Chopra, Sanjay Dutt, Prakash Raj,
Mahie Gill, Atul Kulkarni

Directed by: Apoorva Lakhia

Let's not get carried away. Every time
a remake comes along we get along
gooey-eyed and nostalgic about the
original. Zanjeer gets it right. Dead
right. Unlike Ram Gopal Varma's
remake of Sholay which was purely misguided, and Karan Malhotra's
Agneepath which was unnecessarily
brutal Zanjeer is just what remake
should be. It's respectful to the original
material, which let me hasten to add,
was no masterpiece and suspiciously similar to a 1967 film called Death
Rides A Horse.

In fact a similar film Yaadon Ki Baraat
written by Salim-Javed and released
during the same year 1973 as Zanjeer
was far superior.

Providentially Lakhia's Zanjeer is
neither slavishly reverent to the
original material nor does it take off
into weird wild and wacky tangents,
like the Rohit Shetty's recent remake
of Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Golmaal.

Rather, the new Zanjeer opens up the
original plot, weeds out the humbug
and preserves the core of the revenge
saga of an angry cop whose ire grows
progressively higher as the plot moves
through a series of cleverly conceived conflicts that accentuate his alienation
from his khaki-coloured line of duty.

No one can do to the sullen cop's role
what Mr Bachchan did. But yes,even in
his new avatar Inspector Vijay Khanna
seethes, simmers and boils over with
an indignant rage. Everything about
the festering rotten 'system' makes him annoyed and churlish. Since
Zanjeer, and its more serious-toned
country-cousin Ardh Satya, numerous
cops have vented their cinematic
spleen in films as far-raging in quality
as Singham and Police-Giri.

What makes Vijay Khanna in the new
Zanjeer special is the plot-mechanics
which put him in time-worn situations
but subject him to dramatic dynamics
that give the prototypical Angry Cop a
renewed riveting life of violent score- settling.

That this time the Angry Cop who was
played with such compelling
candidness by Amitabh Bachchan in
original Zanjeer ,is played by
Ramcharan Teja is just a huge stroke of
luck for the remake. Ramcharan brings in an entirely unique brand of silent
satyagraha to his character. When we
first see him on screen he wallops a
goonda-politician on a busy road of
Hyderabad as a hoarding of
Ramcharan's father Chiranjeevi's film looks down on the chaotic scene.

A version of Raghupati raghav plays in
the background as Ramcharan lets us
know without wasting time that he
means business.

The pace from that hardhitting
moment is relentless . The momentum
never slackens even when Vijay
Khanna gets down to expressing
tender thoughts for the fast-talking
befuddled and disoriented NRI girl Mala. Playing Mala Priyanka Chopra
seems to have a whole lot of
infectious fun. She spells joie de vivre
and looks gorgeous.Priyanka is the
comic relief in this fast-paced actioner
where fists and the background pount out an ominous warning.

Apoorva Lakhia paces the proceedings
as a rush-hour traffic of bustling
events. No one has the luxury to stop
and think as the narration gathers up a
storm of pulpy conflicts building up to
an exceptionally staged climax filmed amidst the volatile proceedings of a
crowded Moharram event.

From the Ganpati Viasarjan to the
Moharram, Lakhia's interpretation of
Zanjeer traverses a mammoth canvas
of rapidfire images.Gururaj Jois's
camera moves dexterously but never
to divert out attention from the central conflict. And Chintan Gandhi's
dialogues use one-liners judiciously ,
never over-doing the smart-alec
retorts.

The film's action done by Javed-Ejaz
feels and looks right. The attention
paid to getting the action sequences
right is highly commendable . There is
an elaborately staged multiple-
explosion sequence in a huge Dharavi- like slum which belongs to a Van
Diesel starrer.

Sanjay Dutt steps splendidly into Pran's
part . His sequences though limited by
the actor's physical unavailability,
show the sensitive side to his
aggressive personality. The bonding
between Ramcharan and Dutt comes across as effectively as the one
between Ramcharan and Praiyanka
and Prakash Raj and Mahie Gill. And the momentum never slackens.

Fast-paced, and forever furious,
Zanjeer also finds space to be
excruciatingly funny. In fact the whole
villain-vamp equation between Teja
and Mona Darling is here subverted to
a kind of comic coitus interruptus where Prakash Raj repeatedly keeps
talking about sex without getting
down to it while 'Mona' Mahie Gill
purrs and moans and pouts not out of
passion but for just the opposite
reasons.

The most tongue-in-cheek homage I've
seen in a remake occurs in this film
when we see the new Teja-Mona pair
watching actor Ajit and Bindu in the
original Zanjeer on a DVD. The
sequence is irreverent without appearing to belittle the original.It
reminds us of the renewed cycle of art
and individual talent.

Throughout the film we sense the
director's immense affection for the
original Zanjeer, a reverence that
never clouds his judgement.

This is one remake that stands tall and
lithe. It is manned by a manful supply
of action and yet manages to keep the
machismo understated. Breakneck-
paced, adrenaline-pumping,pulse-
pounding, Apoorva Lakhia deconstructed version of the Prakash
Mehra film is a full-on pacy paisa-
vasool entertainer with brio and balls.
Ramcharan Teja makes an impressive
debut.

We can safely say he is the man
among the boys. Go for it.