Agent Vinod

About the film

Agent Vinod is a 2012 Indian Hindi-language neo-noir spy action film written and directed by Sriram Raghavan and produced by Saif Ali Khan and Dinesh Vijan. The film revolves around terrorist conspiracy and stars Khan and Kareena Kapoor in the lead roles, while Ram Kapoor, Prem Chopra, Shahbaz Khan and Adil Hussain appear in prominent roles with Ravi Kishan in a cameo appearance.

The film released on 23 March 2012 and received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the visuals, acting performances, action sequences, songs, cinematography and production values, but criticised the screenplay and writing. The film underperformed at the box office.

Plot

Somewhere in a Taliban camp in the Dasht-e-Madar desert, in Afghanistan, ISI official Col. Huzefa is interrogating a captured man presumed to be a RAW agent. The man gives details of RAW's operations in Afghanistan in exchange for money and safe passage across the border. In doing so, he betrays his colleague, Major Rajan, who has also infiltrated the camp. This is, however, revealed to be a ruse, as both overpower their captors and fight their way out of the camp. Along the way, they rescue a girl called Farah, who was being held hostage.

Later, the captured man who escaped with Rajan is revealed, in New Delhi, to be Agent Vinod, who is shown a video message recorded by Rajan from Russia mentioning '242' just moments before being shot dead and tasked by RAW chief Hassan Nawaz to find out what '242' is. Vinod travels to St. Petersburg to intercept criminal don Abu Nazer and is almost captured, but manages to escape killing Abu in the process and goes to Tangier, Morocco. He assumes the identity of Freddie Khambatta and meets the Russian mafia boss David Kazaan and his personal Pakistani doctor, Ruby Mendes. Vinod manages to convince Kazaan that he is indeed Freddie and hacks his phone. He gets closer to Ruby to find out what '242' is and finds out that her name is actually Iram Parveen Bilal, and she is a British-Pakistani working undercover for the ISI. He obtains an invitation card for a private auction and learns that many international businessmen, some of them terrorist groups, are converging at an antiques auction in Marrakesh to purchase '242'.

At the auction, Vinod learns that '242' is actually the detonator for a nuclear device, and runs into businessman and philanthropist Jagdishwar Metla, with whom he has a disturbing conversation. A bidding war ensues, and Kazaan manages to secure the detonator through his Russian girlfriend. Eventually, when ISI chief Col. Iftekhar Ahmed is later shot dead in Pakistan by Col. Huzefa moments after being informed of a few defectors, it turns out that a group of rogue ISI colonels, including Huzefa, is planning a nuclear attack on India. Back in Morocco, Kazaan locks the detonator with a password, and hands it over to the mysterious 'Colonel', who has arrived in Morocco. Iram finds out that Vinod is a RAW agent and both agree to work together to prevent the nuclear device from falling into the wrong hands. 'Colonel' captures Ruby and asks her to reveal the whereabouts of Vinod; he then blackmails Vinod's contact into deceitfully retrieving the detonator and later has him killed before Vinod, who realizes the betrayal, can question him at gunpoint. Shortly afterwards, he is attacked and admitted to a hospital. He clears his way out of the hospital to find Iram. 'Colonel', now having the detonator, reaches Riga, Latvia to acquire the bomb. He is joined by rogue mercenary Jimmy, who is to detonate the bomb.

Production

According to Raghavan, Agent Vinod is not a remake of the 1977 action film of the same name. In an interview with Bollywood Hungama, he described it as "a realistic film ... full of action pieces, thrills and characters." On 30 May 2010, the director reported that the film's shoot had officially begun in Mumbai. Filming later continued in Morocco and Latvia.

A Pakistani film maker Iram Parveen Bilal, whom director Sriram Raghavan met at Indian Film Festival Los Angeles, in 2008 was the inspiration behind Kareena's character name. In the beginning of the film, Agent Vinod mentions the name of a mole working as a guard at the Taliban camp in Afghanistan as Mahendra Sandhu, which was a reference to the actor who portrayed Agent Vinod in the original 1977 film.

The film's release was accompanied by an Indiagames strategy mobile video game based on the film.

Soundtrack

The film's soundtrack has been composed by Pritam Chakraborty.

The track "I'll Do the Talking Tonight" is a partial interpolation of the 1978 song "Rasputin", composed by German disco group Boney M. which in turn, was an uncredited interpolation from "Kâtibim", an Ottoman folk song. According to IBN live, "Raabta" is the "most beautiful song" of the film. The version of "Raabta" used in the film is the "Night in a Motel" version and is incorrectly listed as being sung by Hamsika Iyer when in fact it was sung by Aditi Singh Sharma. The song "Habibi Ya Nour El Ain" performed by Alabina and Ishtar was used in a scene in the background when Agent Vinod and Freddie Khambatta are seen walking out of Tangier Airport. However, the song and artist were not credited. The version of "Dil Mera Muft Ka" used in the film is not in the soundtrack. Also not included in the soundtrack was the song "Govind Bolo Gopal Bolo" but which, due to "popular demand", was later uploaded on YouTube by T-Series on 29 March 2012.

Key details