The title sounds deliciously desi , in the same vein as Mr Vinod, doing away with surnames in that typically ‘respectful' Indian manner. There's a bit of kitschy nostalgia, too — it is also the title of a 1977 film, starring Mahendra Sandhu, once pitched as a sex symbol by Stardust magazine, but who, sadly, fizzled out in his bell-bottom pants.

Going by this moniker, Agent Vinod should be a thoroughly Indian thriller, taking our hero all over the globe in his gallant efforts to protect the homeland. Director Sriram Raghavan has gone on record to say his secret Agent Vinod is no James Bond wannabe but his own man.

We have good reason to believe this if we go by Raghavan's earlier films, Ek Hasina Thi and Johnny Gaddaar , which were slick and dark in a Hollywood-ish way but thoroughly Indian in their soul.

It's a dicey proposition, this hybrid genre, the Indian spy thriller. It is difficult to shake off the influence of the many Hollywood blockbusters in this genre we have got accustomed to. What the heck, Hollywood itself cannot shake it off; take out the Burj Khalifa sequence and there's little to differentiate between the first of Tom Cruise's Mission Impossible films and the last (excepting the star's gradually ageing but carefully maintained looks). Farhan Akhtar got the Western-Indian, desi -dude balance right with Don , and perhaps not so well with Don 2 , which was altogether too self-conscious.

That's one mistake I'm hoping Raghavan and Saif Ali Khan, who plays Agent Vinod, won't commit. The actor has worked with the director earlier and they share a mutual admiration for each other's talent. But even if they had not, Saif, surely, would have been a natural choice. The only other actor who, I think, might have been suitable is Akshay Kumar, who has the body, body language and deadpan menace that is the essence of a role like this.

But Saif is B-Town's coolest dude. Partly thanks to his clipped British accent and his effortlessly stylish clothes, but mainly because of that wonderfully, somewhat deceptively laid-back manner and his cleverly understated sense of humour. Very cool, very secret agent.

If Saif has, more or less, to be himself, self-consciousness doesn't look too likely for he has this unhurried, rather arrogant way about him that the media likes to label “ nawabi ”, but is, I think, both feudal and misplaced.

Admittedly, Saif is like many royals who have been forced to go out into a democratic world and earn their living if they want to live in the style they have been accustomed to. His father, Mansur Ali Khan or Tiger Pataudi if you will, showed him the way by earning his stripes in the competitive world of international cricket.

Saif had to cut his teeth in the even more competitive and unforgiving world of Hindi films. Here, talent helps, but doesn't count for much if it doesn't translate into box-office numbers, a reality that's stymied a host of great actors and denied them their due. Saif, to put it plainly, did not have that kind of talent when he started off. Neither did he have the required amount of dedication. Like so many Indian actors who hurl themselves onto the screen without any training, Saif learnt on the job (a luxury that no Hollywood or British actor would be allowed).

But one has to give him credit for staying the course, for putting up with the million humiliations a struggling actor is showered with — and finally getting there. Though he came of age with Hum Tum and Kal Ho Na Ho , it was really Vishal Bhardwaj's masterly Omkara that clinched it.

His raw, earthy Langda Tyagi was a revelation, not only for the audience, but one suspects, for Saif himself. Around the time, he also did the edgy English-language Being Cyrus , in which Homi Adajania cast him against type as well.

Buoyed by these two successes, Saif launched his own production house, Illuminati films, a move which meant he could do the films he really wanted to. Agent Vinod is one of them. In fact, it is one of those “dream projects” that producer-actors tend to get obsessed by — and therein lies the danger. Like Shah Rukh Khan's Ra.One , this film has taken forever to be completed, and that is often a sign of the star getting a tad too involved in the proceedings.

One manifestation of this could be the inclusion of Saif's girlfriend Kareena Kapoor and her mujra sequence in the movie. For one, Kareena has always said she doesn't like doing action — and Agent Vinod is all about that. Two, the mujra seems like a sweetener for her, though the director has denied it, insisting it is an important part of the plot. Granted, this suspicion might be unfair to Kareena, who can not only be a very good actress when she chooses to, but is also a woman who knows her mind. But in this case, both her mind and heart would be geared towards her beau, and who could blame her.

Perhaps one should not complain — for all we know, Kareena could sizzle in both the action and mujra sequences. The dance has been on view for some time now on the music channels, so you've probably made your decision about that already.

As for the rest of the film, we can only hope for the best, for it is the success of films like this that could bring about greater change in our films. Yes, Agent Vinod is a derivative film, one that is inspired by Hollywood and adopts a film-making style that is not home-grown. But that is what gives it its unpredictability factor. This could be a curse as much as a boon in the wrong hands. But it is a risk worth taking if our films have to evolve. And certainly far better than doing a blatant rip-off of a DVD from your collection, or even of an obscure Korean or East European film that you're banking on not too many people having seen. Thankfully, that habit seems to be on the decline now and we seem to be finding our own voice.

shashibaliga@gmail.com

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