Film Review: 'Himmatwala' is a colourful chaos

Film: Himmatwala
Cast: Ajay Devgn, Paresh Rawal, Tamannah, Mahesh Manjrekar, Zarina Wahab
Director: Sajid Khan
Rating: *1/2

Revisiting the past isn't always a good idea. Especially when it comes to remaking an almost forgotten 80's film that didn't really break any new ground, apart from giving us one of the most colorful songs in the history of Indian cinema and making a super star out of Sridevi. If those were the benchmarks Sajid Khan (who claims to have watched the film 36 times!) is set out to achieve, he should have dropped the idea and gone on to make another Housefull.

The 80's make a tacky come back in Himmatwala. Yes, the props and the sets are in sync (posters of Madonna from her Like a Virgin days) and the colors are jarring enough to remind us of  Doordarshan's pre telecast static screen days, but despite the trickery and tom foolery, what lacks is the right approach to making a regressive age old story of revenge and justice. Ajay Devgn play Ravi who returns to his village to find his mother (Zarina Wahab) and sister (Leena Jumani) ostracised and shunned away by the evil sarpanch (Mahesh Manjrekar) and his side kick (Paresh Rawal). How the poster boy along with his lover girl (Tamannah) tackles the odds stacked against him with the help of divine intervention and a CG enhanced tiger is what the film is all about. Along the way there are ample skits and scenes to compensate for the lack of a better plot and sense of logic.

Khan who is a self-proclaimed Wikipedia of the film world, throws away any little inspiration or learning he might have absorbed over the course of watching cinema across genres and resorts to the same old routine of rhyming words and using limericks to weave dialogue and narration. So we are confused when we hear lines like 'mein tumhe ek baar kho chuki hu, dubara nahi khona chahati', whether the film is a tribute to its era or a spoof (when Ajay reminds Tamannah it’s the 80's and she should tear her dupatta and cover his wound), or a cross breed of the both?

Khan has a dry sense of humour and that comes across not just while talking to him, but also while watching his films. No other film maker might have thought of using  words like 'YouTube' and 'Nazi' in his one liners and got away scot-free. If this was his first film, the jokes might have been marginally funny, but revisiting the same formulaic routines to create humour is like trying to pump air into a flat tyre that's already about to burst. The sequence with the tiger who doesn't look menacing enough fails to have the right roar.

Ajay seems like a misfit from the very first frame. It's not just the way he looks but the way he feels that doesn't seem right. His awkwardness while dancing might be excused, but the same can't be said during moments when he has to mouth inane dialogues and resort to the often imitated but never duplicated Golmaal style action scenes. The only scene where he feels at home is when his character references his overused and overdone 'ata majhi satakli aahe' line (perhaps a cue Khan should have taken?). Tamannah doesn't wow you any bit either. She acts on cue, dances well, and even manages to look decent, but as a debut there is nothing strikingly mesmerising about her. Paresh Rawal and Mahesh Manjrekar reminded me of Thompson and Thompson from Tintin, as both are caricatures of similar nature. Even though the former has the best lines, it is the latter that impresses with his craft. The Nainon mein sapna song looks much better on the big screen, but again lacks the mammoth canvas and larger than life appeal it should have had.

Coming from a director who claims to represent majority of the country's audience and has  carved a niche for himself through TV shows, Himmatwala is a sorry excuse for a film.

P.S - Sajid's ode to Hitchcock's Psycho complete with the background track is the only saving grace that will stay with you even after the end.