While one is tempted to praise Saif Ali Khan on a brave attempt at creating an Indian super spy franchise filled with jazzy locations, beautiful babes, toys, explosive action, witticisms and what not, Agent Vinod ends up living in no man’s land and can neither be counted as a new flavor of super spy nor does it do a good job of copying the ones that have gone before it.Agent Vinod, never reveals his name. He is shown breaking out of an ISI controlled terror camp in Afghanistan. The agency he works for – RAW, the Indian intelligence wing is alerted of a nuclear bomb that has fallen into the hands of terrorists. The bomb needs an activation device which is embedded in a copy of Omar Khayyam’s collection of poems - Rubaiyat. This is up for auction in Morocco. Vinod needs to follow the device, capture it and return it to RAW, but ends up losing it thanks to some counter intelligence work by Iram, a Pakistani spy. While initially wary of Iram, Vinod grows close to her after he learns of her conscription into spying by the ISI. They now have to make sure that the nuke does not make its way to Delhi and go off.
I wouldn’t fault the basic story. It had all the ingredients of a multi-country end of the world plot, something that super spy movies thrive on. The locations range from Afghanistan to Morocco to Karachi and our very own New Delhi. But, you don’t enjoy movies just because of locations. The logic that a few powerful people are behind some of the terror that is seen in the world is also believable. Where Agent Vinod fails to tickle the senses is in the sordid screenplay, pitiful editing and monotone acting by its protagonist. Pritam's background score and music tracks are forgettable and do nothing to help the visuals.
Agent Vinod makes you notice the Editor. An Editor is like a wicket-keeper in cricket. If he’s had a good day, you don’t notice him. If he is brilliant, you do. If he is woeful, it sticks out like a sore thumb. In this case, the tempo of the film is all messed up, a clear case of poor co-ordination between the Director, Editor and Music Director. It could also be put down to poor screenplay writing. One can easily see the screenplay inspirations – Bond’s brief flirting with Money Penny before entering the boss’ chamber, his introductory scene in Die Another Day, befriending a gay man to further his means from The Day of the Jackal, so on and so forth.
Several moments, where the main character of Vinod needed to stand out with a crisp one-liner or a zoom-in are botched up, as is the climax. Comprehend this - when a breathless person struggling for oxygen gives you a name, do you ask her to spell it? The dialogues are largely cheesy. When Iram is struggling to hold back tears on her return to Karachi, Vinod tells her ‘Sorry to disturb your Yaadon ki Baraat’. The attempted deadpan humor falls flat throughout the movie.
There are some positives though – a pre-climactic sequence, where Vinod and Iram escape from their hotel is shot much like a music video in 1 long shot of 10 minutes and is done very well. This film finally portrays an Indian operation as an intelligent coordinated one with some semblance of technology used to fight crime.
Saif Khan never allows his real-life charisma to feed Vinod. The character appears confused and is a botched up combination of ruthless, sexy, humorous and emotional. Towards the end of the movie, you wonder what this guy was all about. In hindsight, the look he reveals at the end of the film, should have been his look. Kareena Kapoor as Iram does a better job, but is not convincing as the conscripted spy. She does her best to pout her way through and is not helped by poor writing. The support cast is good with a combination of good character actors, who make the film somewhat bearable. But only just.
Agent Vinod is a poor attempt at creating an Indian super spy. Give me Byomkesh Bakshi anyday.
