Sajid Khan’s Himmatwala (2013) Movie Review

We had some good remakes in Bollywood in recent times like Singam, Bodyguard… Even had some shitty remakes like Players. But this Himmatwala is a remake of 1983’s film and which tries to imitate 1983 events. In a remake it doesn’t mean everything must be exactly similar to original. As a matter of fact, characters make legion mentions to modern life things like swine flu (disease – jo bees saal mein aah jayega) and You – Tube (Water Tube) that were obviously not part of the 1983’s film. He even inspires from cult films like Psycho (Shower Scene) & Planes, Trains and Automobiles (Ear Kissing Scene).

Coming to story line of Himmatwala, Ravi (Ajay Devgn) is a street fighter who fights for money in the city, when he was little he used to live with his family in a village called ‘Ramgarh’ where the terms are dictated by their ‘sarpanch’ Sher Singh(Mahesh Majrekar) who is a cruel guy. One day Ravi’s father accidentally sees Sher Singh killing a person and then tries to accuse him for murder, but meanwhile Sher Singh stimulates a robbery and makes village believe that it was done by Ravi’s father and in turn banishes their family from the village.

After such a huge insult Ravi’s father commits suicide and little Ravi who seeks vengeance for his father’s death tries to hack Sher Singh but fails to do so. And then Sher Singh who is hurt by Ravi wants to kill him but Ravi will be asked to run away from village by his mother which he will do and then Sher Singh destroys Ravi’s house and makes his mother and sister live in a hut somewhere outside the village. Ravi who lives in ignorance of his mother and sister being murdered returns to the village after so many years and then the rest of the movie is about how will Ravi dethrone Sher Singh as village head, teach him a lesson and then reunite with his mother and sister happily.

Ajay Devgan gave the one of his most under whelming performance of his career. Tamanna Bhatia appears before a song and disappears after the song. Chemistry between Ajay and Tamanna is zero. Mahesh Manjerekar is awful. Asrani and Adhyayan are wasted. The supporting cast is average.

Whom to blame, Sajid Khan for writing such wussy script and penning such ugly characterizations. The emotional sequences are hilarious. Action scenes lack the energy, actually makes you yawn! The item songs are wasted. Actually nothing works in Himmatwala.

Manoj Soni’s camerawork is alright. Nitin Rokade’s editing is could have been better. Sajid-Wajid’s music is average. Sandeep Shirodker’s background score is loud.

Survi Verdict: You really need to be a real Himmatwala to tolerate this type of flick. Watch it only if you laughed your heart out in Jaffa & Thrilled while watching Aravind 2 this weekend. On the whole, Himmatwala – An Atrocious effort!!