By: Ankur Karan Singh
Cast: Ajay Devgn, Tamannaah Bhatia, Mahesh Manjrekar, Paresh Rawal, Zarina Wahab, Adhyayan Suman, Asrani, Sonakshi Sinha (Cameo)
Written and Directed By: Sajjid Khan
Music: Sajid Wajid
Runtime: 2 Hrs 30 Min
Rating: * 1/2
These days, in the absence of innovative scripts, novel ideas and captivating plots, some of our Bollywood biggies seems to be left with no other choice except taking a sousing in the reservoir of tried and tested scripts.
Be it Southern blockbusters or yesteryear cine delights, everything is emerging as too lucrative for tinsel town cine sorcerers who don't even mind going retro when it comes to movie making. So is the case with Sajjid Khan's over hyped "official remake" of 80s cine cantata "Himmatwala", and over hyped because before the release, Sajjid was seen averring about refunding money, if somebody finds entertainment missing in the movie.
Before going ahead with the post-mortem of the this official remake from the cine lab of Sajid, I take it as my moral responsibility to apprise the masses about the fact, that 80's "Himmatwala" featuring Jeetender, Sri Devi, Amjad Khan and Kadar Khan was a trendsetter movie of Indian cine history, which thoroughly invoked the trend of remaking the southern cine cantatas in Bollywood. Anyhow, coming back to this over hyped cine delight, on it's opening, Himmatwala could only succeed in inviting the foot fall of mere 3-7 percent of cine buffs to the multiplex.
Synopsis
With almost a similar premise and a few new cinematic patches, "Himmatwala" narrates the story of a son, who returns to his native village to avenge the injustice done to his father by a village land lord by wrongly framing him in a robbery.
Story
As the story takes off, Ravi (Ajay) returns to his native village Ramnagar, with an idea of avenging the injustice done to his family by village landlord, Sher Singh (Mahesh Manjerekar), who years back accused his father of robbery and post which Ravi's entire family straggles and slips in to the marshes of hardships.
On reaching his village Ravi finds that his mother and sister whom he assumed to be dead are still alive and are leading a very wretched life on the village outskirts.
On knowing this, Ravi meet them and bring them back to their house in village, where he has a rendezvous with Sher Singh's harlequin loyalist, Narayandass (Presh Rawal) who forewarn Ravi about the dire consequences, but ends up being at the receiving end of Ravi's blows.
As the frames roll ahead steps in finicky daughter of Sher Singh, Rekha (Tamanna Bhatia), who too didn't have a very pleasing first meeting with Ravi. Soon after this, oblivious about Ravi's background, Sher Singh himself steps into the arena and comes across a shocking revelation. And from there a bland punch of Action, humor and masala takes over and starts testing your patience.
Script
Undoubtedly, having a ready made script in ones hands while making a remake of an already hit cine cantata is a sort of win-win situation for the cine framers, but at the same time task becomes a bit steep too, because with a tag of remake pasted over it intrusion of comparison is quite obvious.
With gallons of hope knitted around "Himmatwala", Sajjid tried to pay a supreme tribute to the master piece, but actually ends up offering tons of squirming and jading to the cine buffs by his irksome storytelling.
Although Sajjid tried to do some patch work on the original premise while penning down, Himmatwala, but unfortunately all his efforts went futile.
Sans any captivating component and innovative thought process behind its script "Himmatwala" is too monotonous to tolerate. Be it intensity of action sequences, humor punches or even the romance everything seems to be limping and stodgy. So in script department "Himmatwala" thoroughly lacks captivation.
Screenplay and Dialogues
May be while drafting the screenplay of "Himmatwala", Sajid and his team of experts might have repeatedly referred the previous "Himmatwala", in order to keep line between resemblance and unlikeliness quite clear. But in spite of that, screenplay of "Himmatwala" falls flat on ground and completely fails in engendering any kind of curiosity among the cine buffs.
With melodrama so frequently poking in and dialogues obtruded with a putty of repetitiveness and pretentiousness ,even screenplay of "Himmatwala" don't rescue you from the detention of ongoing boredom.
Direction and Technical Perspective
Well, as far as directional perspective is concerned then undoubtedly, Himmatwala is a no path braking saga even on this front too and looks more of a cine tale crafted for heck of doing it.
Although Sajid retained major chunks of original, "Himmatwala", including aural delights like "Naino Mein Sapna" and even the persona of the characters, but inspite of that he completely fails in delivering the kind of of cine tale for which he is known. With everything surrendering to the jaws of melodrama, and obtrusion engendering yawns among the audience "Himmatwala" will definitely disappoint you.
And if we go by the another perspective, that it was Sajid's homage to K. Raghavendra Rao's 1983 release then again it's a very calamitous homage. Infact before going ahead with the remake of path breaking originals ace director like Sajid are expected to get hold of fan's pulse in order to dish out the entertaining delights, but this time Sajid seemed to have flunked on that front too.
Besides this, other technical fronts of "Himmatwala" also seems to be half-baked, be it cinematography, editing everything seems to be originated from backcloth of lacking innovation.
Music
With evergreen original songs from the original, "Naino Mein Sapna" and "Taki Taki" music of Sajid-Wajid is somewhat OK kinds. New addition "Bum Pe Laat" is tolerable and as far as item delights are concerned, then they too somewhat qualifies to be on the other side of the benchmark of satisfaction.
Star Performances
Although there is a widely prevailing notion that intense and up till an extent humorous performances are Ajay's patent styles of acting, but in "Himmatwala", Ajay looks quite comfortable and confident in his retro avatar. Infact it won't be wrong to say that, Ajay thoroughly succeeds in performing what he is expected to.
As far as performance of newbie Tamanna is concerned then inspite of being the leading lady of the movie, she don't get much chance to put forth her acting prowess and end up being a mere glamour frill.
Zarina Wahab is just OK as Ajay's onscreen mother. Mahesh Manjrekar well succeeds in doing a thorough justice to his character and quite comfortably reaches the benchmark set by late Amjad Khan in the original.
With complete absence of expressions, Adhyayan Suman is as good as mannequin. But the man who completely steals the show with his brilliance is, Paresh Rawal.
With some best dialogues in his kitty and a marvellous acting dexterity Paresh surpasses all his co-stars and emerges as true entertainer.
All six item girls including Sonakshi have looked gorgeous and have somewhat succeeded in grabbing some gazes.
BO Potential
After making cash registers ringing with his previous popular films, this time the task seems to be a bit tedious for Sajid. And most probably it's either going to be fan following of Ajay or prevailing notions about Sajid's style of cinematography, which may do some miracles for this sinking cine vessel whose survival on BO for a long span of time seems to be a next to impossible.
Verdict
To sum up, you really need to be a real "Himmatwala" with tons of courage to tolerate this over hyped cine obsession from the house of Sajid Khan. And yeah, after leaving the cinema hall don't forget to claim your money back.
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