10 years of Agent Vinod: Revisiting the flashy saga of the world’s luckiest secret agent

It has been a decade since Agent Vinod made his debonair entry onto the silver screen. And what better day to take a look back at the film where Saif Ali Khan channeled his inner James Bond, or tried to, in the form of the smooth talking, suave Agent Vinod Khanna.

As far as spy films go, Agent Vinod is in no way the cream of the crop, and in fact unintentionally finds itself bordering on a parody of the genre. The film tries to depict its titular protagonist as a golden boy when it comes to secret service. Covert intelligence work is his only calling, something he was meant to do since he was a mere boy, this particular sentiment drilled into the story when he narrates the superhuman feat he had performed as a teenager- single handedly rescuing a cable car of passengers all by his lonesome. And since the film is in no way supposed to be a spy comedy, Agent Vinod says it all with a straight face, and viewers are supposed to roll over and accept it as the absolute truth.

The agent also seems to be one of the luckiest people ever to take up the dangerous career. Barrage of bullets evade him by inches and every woman he meets seems to have a sense of humour poor enough to swoon over his bland jokes and ‘witticisms’. Mediocre jokes aside, Vinod’s entire personality seems to revolve around his career, something that would not have been a bad thing, had he actually been good at it. Many times, it becomes glaringly obvious that the number of close shaves he has is not the result of his skills, but are due to how dense and incompetent his foes seem to be , even the top brass of terrorist organisations falling victim to Vinod’s flimsy covers.

But I have to give it to him, what he lacks in competence, he certainly does make up for in unsubstantiated confidence and gumption, which ultimately helps him save the day and get the girl too, sort of. It's hard for a film to ride on style alone, but Agent Vinod certainly makes an effort to do so, as viewers are treated to a cannonade of some fast paced action sequences and other snazzy eyecatchers. Stand-offs between him and multiple goons, high speed chases and a trip to an array of locations certainly help to bring viewers’ waning attention back to it at different points, even though some action scenes do at times fall into comical territory. The film’s music also comes as its saving grace, one of the most memorable tracks from the film definitely being Raabta.

The 2012 film is written and directed by Sriram Raghavan and also features Kareena Kapoor,Ram Kapoor, Shahbaz Khan and Adil Hussain.

Agent Vinod is available to stream on Eros Now.