The film released to theaters today copies the James Bond character from Hollywood—like always, west’s recycled trash sells in Indian cinema. Since a spy of that virtuosity requires a powerful villain commensurate with the caliber, Agent Vinod has taken Pakistan’s powerful intelligence agency ISI as its match. This storyline is enough to turn Pakistan’s “patriotic” censor board off on the film and they shrank in shame and anger, rushing to ban the film at once. Like the ban on BBC documentary and other such self-defense measures, this is yet another example of blowing the trumpet: “Yes – we are afraid of how you paint us!”
Saif Ali Khan, the film’s producer and actor in the lead role, has condemned Pakistan’s ban on the film. He is right in his own regard when he says that such a ban will only work to increase the film’s demand’ leading a rush of getting it by piracy. So the ban will profit the black market beside the general impression that Pakistan is trying to hide its evil while India has the guts to expose it. India reaps all the political benefit and Pakistan’s image is stained again. But apart from the film’s commercial success, what else does Saif Ali Khan get from this venture?
We remember Bollywood once superstar Anil Kapoor acted in such a ‘patriotism’ themed film Pukar (in the year 2000). In the film, Kapoor, playing an Indian army officer, bursts into emotion while torturing a terrorist caught and under interrogation, and referring to Pakistan’s 5 atomic explosions, spoke, “Making a nuclear bomb has made you think of yourselves a something. Every youth of our nation is a nuclear bomb… come to war and your country will be out of existence within 8 days.” For this “stellar” performance, as some Indians called it, Anil Kapoor won a National Film Award for Best Actor. That was a time when Kapoor’s popularity as a lead actor was on the ebb. So now when Saif Ali Khan is hardly wanted by any producer, he seems to have chosen the same path others have successfully used for succoring a dying acting career and becoming national heroes.
But what if the film somehow falls flat? Well, we do hope Saif Ali Khan and his supporters (in this venture at least) don’t throw that on the ISI too. At some time in one’s acting career, one should realize that they are no more the heartthrob (Khan never was one in the first place) and remaining on screen till your last breath isn’t the biggest virtue after all.
