Hours after watching Elaan, I couldn't recover from the fact that it has been awarded an "A" certificate by the censors. Whatever for? The blood spilled is not a drop more than in our other notable action flicks. Nor are Lara Dutta's innumerable bustiers tinier than what our collective acceptance level would allow for. In fact, Elaan is so terribly infantile and hackneyed that it seems to have been deliberately manufactured for a kindergarten audience. Why, even a self-respecting child will dismiss it for being too callow, overdrawn and dreary.
Elaan is a wannabe Hollywood flick in terms of its ambitious action set-pieces and its sheer spread. It moves rather quickly from Mumbai to Venice to Austria to Munich and ends up as a rather good-looking European tourism brochure. Nothing more. The story is a mere apology. When NRI terrorist Baba Sikand (Mithun) kills Karan's (Rahul) billionaire father for not paying him Rs 20 crore, Karan decides to build a small army of his own to go abroad and bring Baba back to India. He enlists the services of an ex-cop (Arjun) and Baba's former gang member (John) for the mission. Not a single character displays any internal coherence, complexity or growth. Worse, the various actors playing them give cardboard a terribly bad name. Leading from the front is the utterly passive and expressionless Mithun as the dreaded terrorist. Funnily Baba's supposed fear factor never really hits you other than when he himself proclaims aloud that people are frightened of him. Rahul is too westernised to fit into Bollywood. Perhaps his low-key style and English-accented Hindi are the culprits. For most of the film John doesn't wear a shirt but wears a lot of tattoos. He looks too hip for a Mumbai tapori. Arjun is the cool dude who can't help being genteel even while growling. And women, well they fill in as the eye candy that they are meant to be. Amisha preens and irritatingly so. Lara wears those tiny bustiers and dances. Both of them also become trigger-happy with ease, just to lend a helping hand to the three gentlemen.
Elaan is memorable for one reason alone—it makes you feel way too deprived as a hack. Now look at our TV journo Amisha. She chases good-looking rich boys for doing exclusive stories, then ends up marrying them. Her boss easily sends her off on a jaunt across Europe for a flimsy story and then she very conveniently disappears when the story shows no signs of materialising. Now when will we journos ever have a life like that!
Indian Top 5
1. Elaan
2. Insaan
3. Swades
4. Veer-Zaara
5. Mughal-e-Azam
US Top 5
1. Coach Carter
2. Meet the Fockers
3. Racing Stripes
4. In Good Company
5. Elektra
Courtesy: Film Information
