Don
Reviewed by Simon Booth
Director: Chandra Barot
Music: Klyanji Anandji
Year: 1978
Running Time: 2 hours and 46 minutes
Don is a very bad boy. In an international
syndicate of smugglers, Don is the meanest of them all. Mess with Don and
you're dead. It's not just difficult to catch the Don... it's impossible!
Amitabh Bachchan plays Don like every cool dude rolled into one - Shaft,
Dirty Harry, err... other cool dudes . That is until he takes a bullet 30
minutes into the movie and dies. "Wait a minute - this movie is 3 hours long,
and they've killed the title character already!" is bound to be your first
thought at this. But it's alright, because the only man to see him die, the
police 'DSP' (Iftikhar), happens to know of a man who is Don's exact double...
and he has a plan. He trains up the amiable betel-nut chewing street performer
in the ways of the Don, and sends him undercover to root out evidence against
the rest of the gang. Here Amitabh gets to show his range - from badass cool
dude to goofball to goofball pretending to be a badass cool dude, he fits
the role (and those flared trousers) to a tee.
Don has clearly been made from concentrated 1970's extract... and it's cheesier
than a McDonald's Cheeseburger where they forgot to give you everything but
the cheese - and when you go up to the counter to complain, they just give
you more cheese . But even though you know it's probably going to make you
fat and give you spots, you can't help going back for more. The movie manages
to straddle that fine line between inspiration and idiocy where you find
the rarest of substances - pure entertainment.
This is not a movie to be taken seriously, and it could hardly be called
a movie of great technical virtue. But Amitabh Bachchan takes the role(s)
and gives them such a lot of character and life you can't help but love watching
him. The crew of flared and paisleyed crooks and goons and the kung fu fighting
revenge babe (Zeenat Aman), the crippled tight rope walker (Pran) and the
well meaning but mostly simple police officers all make the Don's world an
interesting environment to watch Amitabh at work and play too.
And then there's the zoom lenses, the toe tapping funk tunes, the chase scenes
that seem to leap miles between each cut, the fight scenes that are acted
out in courteous slow motion (when they're not being bounced around on trampolines)...
the song and dance routine opining on the virtues of mixing opiates and stimulants...
With Tears Of The Black Tiger and Don all in one weekend I feel guilty, like
I've just eaten a whole triple chocolate cake in one sitting... life just
shouldn't be this much fun!
If you've got 3 hours going spare, let the
Don into your life too and he'll make you a happy chappy I guarantee