Agent Vinod is Director Sriram Raghavan’s ode to the spy genre and a genuine attempt at entertaining the masses in a sensible manner. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work. The film is just not that much fun as it was promised during its promotion, definitely not intelligent enough and most of all not entertaining. The film has flashes of brilliance and also seemed like a good script to make a film on, but somewhere, something went terribly wrong. There is a huge gulf to bridge between the script and the film.

Agent Vinod suffers from this heavy hangover of a Bond movie and literally plays out like a Bond movie too - the action kickstarts in Afghanistan where Agent Vinod (Saif) is held captive. He then goes onto travel 9 to 10 countries, Russia, Morocco, Latvia, Pakistan and England among them. Ironically, for a spy, he doesn’t behave like one and keeps getting caught (he escapes every time, of course). Talk about lengthening our misery in the theatre. And like every Bollywood film, Agent Vinod being the hero, gets the last laugh and is sent to finish the assignment of Agent Rajan. Agent Rajan was the one who rescued him in Afghanistan and is killed while on a mission in Russia.

While promoting the film, Saif Ali Khan described the film as a mish mash of Bond-Bourne-TinTin. Clearly, after watching the film, the only coherent result visible to the audience is a far cry from the promised mish mash. While wanting to make Agent Vinod on the aforementioned films, Saif and the director clearly forgot to keep a fine balance between a wholesome entertainer and a sensible film. It is precisely the only reason why the film fails to come across as a successful venture.   

Kareena Kapoor, while also being a spy in the film, seems like an unwanted baggage you have to lug around all the time. All she does is cower behind Agent Vinod while he bashes the bad guys black and blue. Kareena’s responsibility was to ensure the drama is prolonged and there is an element of romance in the film, which she does with panache. Other than this, her half baked character is boring and far from the femme fatale you were expecting her to be.  The same goes for Saif Ali Khan too. Saif is unconvincing as a secret agent, for more than half the film he seems to be suffering from mood swings, presumptuous in one shot, stony in the next.

Unwanted scenes and songs add to the film’s weight and make it a drag. For a film filled with apocalyptic nuclear explosions and fast paced trips from one country to another, Agent Vinod is woefully slow and is gripping in flashes. The movie has massive potential though. Some of the dialogues are brilliant, and the film is slicker than most Bollywood films that claim to be stylish action thrillers. While Saif seems to be the best choice to play the spy, there just wasn’t enough meat on his role and he falls short of coming up with a spectacular performance.

Agent Vinod is brilliant in bits, and overwhelmingly daft in others. Probably the most inconsistent film to have come out of Bollywood lately and a massive letdown. Unfortunately, what could have been a good franchise, turns out to be rather insipid. Agent Vinod is a Can't Watch.