A poor and wronged mother’s son (Ajay Devgn) comes to the village to avenge his father and succeeds while also taming and getting the shrew who hates garibs (Tamannaah) by giving her a ‘bum pe laath’.
Even if you don’t care for critics, even if you want to make mass appeal ‘entertainers’ and not films, even if you are confident of everything that you make, you still need to do a good job of it at some level. Which may explain why Sajid Khan’s previous fare, nonsensical as it was, worked commercially. But Himmatwala takes tripe to new levels, and is a zero effort production that lacks even the buffoonery of say a Housefull. Instead of a tribute to 80s kitsch, Sajid remakes it as if this was the 80s. No other explanation is possible when you see the maa beta dialogues spoken in earnestness, and the sister getting saved from rape sequence as a way to make a statement against female abuse.
Well, it’s an idea that failed, because this is a huge dud of a film. It is tacky, incredibly boring, and embarrassingly falls short of everything it tries. Ajay Devgn never looks like the larger than life hero he tries to portray, the villain is more of a joker and less of a menace, and Paresh Rawal transforms into Kader Khan – in look and diction – as a tribute to his iconic roles in films like Himmatwala but ends up providing humor as fake as the portrayal itself.
There are stray moments of humor – the ridiculous spoofs of Psycho and Ashok Kumar’s rail gaadi song work. They are classic Sajid for anyone who has seen his TV shows from before his ‘entertainer’days. At least there was effort in thought and execution.
Save yourself the effort and watch the original on YouTube if you wanted to enjoy a blast from the past , because this ain’t it.
Hindi, Action, Drama, Color