As it clocks 13 Years, Subhash K Jha revisits the espionage thriller Agent Vinod, which featured Saif Ali Khan in his slick, cool spy avatar. We also hear from director Sriram Raghavan about making the intriguing film.
Sriram Raghavan’s Agent Vinod travels all across the world to capture some of the most never-seen spots in the world, the plot, an intelligent, clever, urbane, and wry melange of Jason Bourne and James Bond, Farz, and Mission Impossible, finally finds its most assured resting-place in apana jahaan Delhi.
The last half-hour, when an international terrorist outfit attempts to blow up Delhi, has the grammar of an espionage thriller so riveting and so right that you wonder what took director Sriram Raghavan so long to get there. The plot, perched precariously on the brink of self-indulgence, never spins out of control.
Raghavan, a late bloomer if ever there was one, has only done two feature films Ek Haseena Thi (which cast Saif Ali Khan as the bad guy) and Johnny Gaddaar in ten years.
Agent Vinod is the kind of meticulously crafted spy drama where cerebral considerations mesh into more earthy demands of commercial Hindi cinema, like item songs in smoky bars, shootouts in dust-toasted-brown locations that are as treacherous as they are daunting and, wonder of wonders, a clumsily-choreographed Mujra which doesn’t quite fit into the smooth storytelling.
From its opening in a Taliban-infested area, there is no dearth of intrigue in Agent Vinod. Agents, counter-agents, moles and molls, open-air flea markets, and shopping malls jostle for attention in a script that appears to know its John le Carre as well as its Nick Carter. Raghavan spins a delicious yarn of guns and growls, but blessedly, no gadgets. The action is crackling. The soundtrack is a chirpy mix of cheesy retro (RD and Asha Bhonsle ‘Meri Jaan Tune Kaha’ from the film The Train pops up unannounced) and contemporary techno sounds.
Clearly, Sriram and Saif adore the spy genre. We can see the fun they’ve had in doing this film. But beneath the boys-having-fun mood is an undertone of reverence for all the espionage films from our own Agent Vinod in 1977 to Hollywood’s Mission Impossible series.
Holding the restless plot in place is Saif Ali Khan’s clenched and controlled performance. Khan desists from playing the spy to the galleries. He is urbane and cool. But he doesn’t enjoy shooting the enemies for his country, and really, patriotic jingoism is left far behind in the race to save civilization from a nuclear catastrophe. There’s a job to be done. And no room for fornication and fun.
Agent Vinod must be the only spy film from India where the Indian flag is not saluted or even mentioned in passing in hushed or shrill tones. Saare jahan se achcha, right. But this guy with a funny name like ‘Agent Vinod’ would rather get along with the job.
Saif’s performance is unfussy, no-nonsense, and largely humourless. The end title, when he attempts to do a funny song, seems so out of character that you wonder why the spy is trying so hard to be comical when we like him, Martini-dry.
Ambling from one exotic location to another with the irradiant Kareena Kapoor in tow, Saif is a portrait of restrained heroism. He gets much-needed support from a cast of actors who seem to have been chosen without a second option. Every player knows his job and does it without looking distracted or self-important. It’s an art to not get carried away when the cinema is so deeply derivative.
Sriram Raghavan’s direction is deep-focused on the inner world of people who live on the edge. There is no room for romance or emotions. In the only meaty sequence that she has, Kareena moves us to tears when she tells Saif she wants a typical girl’s life. Significantly, Saif eats as she weeps. Elsewhere, when she touches home base in Pakistan, Saif does not too rudely interrupt her nostalgic sentimentality.
For all its sharply defined interludes of counter-intelligence maneuvers, Agent Vinod tends to get long-winded, though miraculously, the narrative never gets out of breath. On the contrary, it takes our breath away towards the end when, in a climactic bomb-diffusion end-game that is reminiscent of Mani Shankar’s 16 December, Raghavan’s directorial audaciousness touches an unzippered zenith.
The globally-shot material is edited by Pooja Ladha Surti, with more room for the narrative to sprawl and recline than necessary. Really, how much of the disconnected derring-do can we take before we throw our hands up in unresisting surrender?
The action sequences by Peter Heins and Parvez are sometimes heart-in-the-mouth. Other times, they seem to have been put together on the editing table. Life’s like that. You are either swept away in circumstances beyond your control. Or you create situations that you choose to be swept away in.
Agent Vinod is not quite the overwhelming experience that you would want a global espionage thriller to be. More thoughtful than thundering, more la Carre, and less Bond, it nonetheless takes the spy genre in Hindi to a new level of finesse. Finally, the cool quotient in Sriram Raghavan’s chic spin on the espionage thriller is so high that you forget Bond and all his bloody brothers.
Says Sriram Raghavan, “The plot is a bit packed, and a lot of things are happening. But I do believe it’s a film one can watch again and relish. Some critics have been scathing because they perhaps expected a dark thriller like my earlier films. But Agent Vinod was always designed as a sprawling action-adventure, moving at a frantic pace. Blink, and you miss a link…as the old trailers used to say.”
Speaking of the espionage thrillers which influenced Agent Vinod, Sriram says, “I love the spy genre and definitely was influenced by the classic spy films. North by Northwest, Notorious, and other Hitchcock films. The Bond films, of course. My editor Pooja Ladha Surti’s father had the entire Bond series with special features, which he happily lent me. And the Bourne films. Other influences include more serious but great films like Syriana, Munich, and Paradise Now… I also saw the Mission Impossible series…basically, I love these films. And not to forget the spy films made by Ramanand Sagar, Ravee Nagaich, Shakti Samanta, and Brij in the late 60s and 70s.”
The idea was to tell a real story set in today’s times in a fun-filled and exciting manner. Often, the narrative seems to be overcrowded with references and innuendos, including tattoos from the old Agent Vinod and rather intriguing references to Charlie Chaplin.
Explains Sriram, “The Chaplin Truck was actually there on the location in Riga where we were doing the action scene. It would have been a crime not to use it. Also, Riga, I discovered, is the birthplace of Sergei Eisenstein, the great Russian director who made Battleship Potemkin and more.”
Agent Vinod moves through several seemingly unrelated locations in different parts of the world. How tough was it to shoot in terrain as disparate as Morocco, Riga, Russia, and Somalia?
Says Sriram, “Actually, there is a clear journey. Vinod’s colleague is killed in Russia. He goes there and finds out that a Hawala courier has been sent to Morocco. Vinod intercepts him on the flight and takes on the identity of Freddie Khambatta. In Morocco, he meets Iram, and then things happen that take him to Riga, Karachi, and finally, New Delhi. Along with this, we intercut the bomb’s journey, which includes Somalia. Agent Vinod is a simple story, but because it’s a simple story, it’s got to be told in a complicated way… to keep it engaging for the viewer. The film has a no-nonsense narrative style. No space is set aside for back projections and upfront diversions.”
And yet a disco-mujra shows up in the second half. How much of an intrusion do you consider music and dance to be? “I love music and dance in our films. My earlier films, being somewhat intimate stories, didn’t have the scope to have many songs. The mujra was always a part of the script. A wedding in Karachi, which Agent Vinod has to infiltrate, is an ideal song situation. If you remember, Johny Mera Naam has a bhajan Lataji’s ‘Govind Bolo Hari Gopal Bolo’, and that shot like a thriller.”
The cast is exceedingly eclectic and arresting: B. P Singh, Dhritiman Chatterjee, Prem Chopra, Ram Kapoor, and that old Doordarshan actor Lalit Parimoo, who plays the terrorist professor in Delhi.
Says Sriram, “The right casting is half my job done. Yes, we did spend time on casting. My associate Rakesh must have done a hundred auditions for each character. We got a good Jimmy in Anshuman Singh. Mr BP Singh is not an actor but the director of the super-successful CID series. I chose him because I wanted a real face for that role. Ram Kapoor was a sheer delight. I love his over-the-top performance.”
Interestingly, Saif was also the film’s producer. Sriram admits there were differences of opinion. “We had many heated debates and arguments whilst scripting. But all for the movie. Saif has a keen aesthetic sense, and I have only gained from his involvement. As you can see, he has not spared any expense to make this film as good as can be. Irrespective of the final box office outcome of Agent Vinod, we intend to make it a franchise.”
