DON review...The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men .....

<-------Pointless Discourse ------>
Being a megalomaniac bad-ass is much more fun than being the hero....
1.You get to do the craziest things without any excuses...And no cleaning up later.( Shoot the poor bloke who wants to leave your gang, kill the police informer with a well placed golf ball)
2.You get all the cool Gadgets( A watch that detonates bombs and warns you of pesky intruders ) 3. You have a vamp for company ( Isha Kopikkar)
4.Your base of operations are in the snazziest locations throughout the world( Paris , Malasiya)
5. You get a cool wardrobe ( Funky Shirts, Tag Huer , Oakley , et all)
6.Highly Personalized Transport ( Covertible Mercs , Helicopters )
7. You get the best lines ( "I like me too...", "Mujhe uske joote pasand naih the...")
And you get to look cool in the process
<-------End of pointless Discourse---->

First of all , hats off to Farhan Akhtahr . He took a really big chance in remaking Don . Remaking cult classics is always a risky proposition ... you have to stay true to the original and still put something fresh for the audieice . And when the original has some of the most iconic moments in Hindi Film History (... Khaike paan Banars , Yah mera dil , 11 mulk ke police ...) you know that you have a tough job on your hands . If you go wrong , you wil have earned the warth of a generation of Aunties and Uncles He took a even bigger chance by getting Shah Rukh to fill in the Big Bs shoes. He doesn't seem to have much success outside of his romantic roles ( Not necessarily because they are bad movies ) . So it was with some apprehension that I went to see this movie....would Farhan massacer the classic ? Could SRK match up to Amitabh ? Would I be paying just to see the same move , albeit with exotic locations and modern Technology? Well , to tell you the truth , Farhan has made a pretty decent movie. Does it surpass the original ? No way . Does it come close ? Yes it does . Will it become a classic ? Not likely

The Good

SRK is pretty good as the Don . ( More on that later ). The costumes , his mannerisms and ex-pression are as close as anyone can come to the Original Don without imitating him . Face it , no way that SRK can pull off an Amitbh... so he decided to do it in his own way.He mouths the dialogs with malice and does a generally good job of bringing the bad-ass Don on screen, although he is less successful as Vijay. Think of it as Baazigar-meets-Duplicate. You get to see him use plenty of high tech-gadgets , romance damsels and deal death with uber-coolness ( Poor Cahnky Pandey...)
The first half of the movie moves along at a brisk pace . Its basically the same Don an a modern setting , while the second half deviate considerably from the original.

Farahan has also made quite a few changes to the script . Jasjit( Arjun Rmpal ) is no logner a circus-artist . Instead he is a hacker/security-analyst . Instead of the Don being killed , in this one he is taken to a secret location.
There are also a number of twists in the plot , especially the BIG ONE , right there in the end... never saw it coming ( Maybe I was too stupid)
There are some good action sequences. The Dons rescue from the Malaysian police is as good as anything in Hollywood . The car chase is also pretty good....you can never go wrong with exploding auto-rickshaws .. Even tough the escape form the plane is a rip-off form Con-Air/Moonraker , its still pretty well done.

Priyanka Chopra is also quite good as Roma . Boman Irani is competent enough , although he looks sightly uncomfortable as DCP DeSilva .Kaareena Kapoor is okay for the 10 minutes or so that she's on screen .

The background score matches the film perfectly. cinematography is first rate .

The Bad

First of , all I really think that the movie lacks soul . The Original didn't have such high production values , but it was much moire engaging and lively . You never really get attached much to any of the characters . I felt that the same thing was wrong with Krrish... Koi Mil Gaya had me rooting for Rohit , while Krrish was just ho-hum.
The movie supposedly has 1200 edits . 1500 wouldn't have been a bad idea . the movie lags considerably for most of the second half .Although it does pick up in the end it really drags in some parts . ( But the ending does make up for it though ) . Like his previous movies ( DCH , Lakshay), he seems to have gone haywire in the second half .The number of dealings and double crossings revolving around the missing disc( The major plot point ) also gets on your nerves and after a wile you wish that they would just get rid of the damn thing .
SRK cannot pull off the UP-bhaiya act . It looks artificial , like he is imitating Amitabh . He should ave made it a Mumbaiyah-character. I really think it would have worked much better.
The worst part has to be the choreography of the songs . Yeh mera Dil...Remember how Sensuous Helen was ? Now we have kareena doing some kind of tribal dance that would be better suited on Tarzan, with heaving bosoms et al . Khaike pans banaras is insipid ( with a highly contrived setting) . Aaj ki Raat (and the title song , to some extent ) was the only one that was passable . I really expected much more.

The Ugly

In-your-face Malasiya .Thanks for the guided tour .
Yeah Mera Dil....kill the choreographer .

Overall , I would have to say that this a good film , but not without it's flaws . If you are expecting iot to recreate the magic of the original , then you will be disappointed .Not for the purists . Bu if you want entertainment , then this is as good as any other movie release this year.
I'd give it 3.5/5 . But I just cant help liking this movie...so it's a 4 .

<--Useless Trivia--->
The picture hanging in Dons safe is "The Scream" (Check it out... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scream )which was stolen in 2004 and was still missing at the time that the movie was shot( It was recovered last month )...couldn't help but laugh at that clever piece of humor.