Veer [Hindi] Movie Review

Veer’y Veer’y Ordinary

Failures of such gargantuan proportions need to be documented for posterity. Salman Khan’s ‘Veer’ should be a statutory caution to all those who like to think they can write a film, just because they have 14 inch biceps.

Directed by the maker of Gadar – Ek Prem Katha Anil Sharma and with story credits to Salman Khan, Veer reads like a cheap comic book that has sprung to life and its characters have begun talking.

And it’s not a pleasant thought. Period.

Oh… just before we forget, Veer is meant to be a period film set sometime in the 19^th century. And by period film that obviously means outlandish costumes, kohl-eyed men wearing exquisite armours (some of them made from some cheap PVC foam from the looks of it).

Sharma takes us to the age, when central India was beset with warrior – criminal clans and Salman (Veer) is born in just one such feuding group called the Pindari’s, which FYI was a criminal tribe notified by the British.

Mithun Chakravarthy his father wants him to become a stellar, great warrior right from the time Veer is born. To really see if the child has the mettle to make it as a warrior, Mithun even holds him out in the pouring rain to see if the kid can stand it.

Veer grows bred on the brew of revenge against the ruler of the kingdom of Madhavgarh played by Jackie Shroff.

And then all off a sudden the landscape changes and voila Veer is in his ‘period’ suits playing the gentleman (ok ok he does lop off a few heads) and studying in London with his brother Sohail Khan.

And boom… out in London, the story turns the way most of our epic love stories have. Veer falls in love with his enemy’s daughter Yashodara played by Zarine Khan, who looks like Katrina Kaif.

This Zarina-Katrina switch gives you that same sort of a kinky feeling when you saw a very, very young Aishwarya Rai lookalike Sneha Ullal, play opposite Salman in a film, after the actor had had a messy break up with the ice maiden Rai.

The climax in the film is long drawn out with skirmishes, war battles accounting for several quintals of cheap tomato ketchup, making up for blood. (That it’s ketch up or something close to it, is pretty obvious).

We know Anil Sharma is not a subtle man, when it comes to cinema.

But something went horribly wrong with Veer here. If Salman has indeed written the screenplay, he certainly should not do so again. At least, a consultative session with his father and legendary film writer Salim Khan is in order.

The sets and costumes give you a feeling that they have been brushed and used again after being borrowed from Ramanand Sagar’s warehouse; last used when he shot Ramayana.

There is not a plus anywhere as far as acting is concerned. Salman Khan plays the ruffian-comic well at times, but not a stoic, period hero. Not for him. The music is passe. A word of praise for Neena Gupta, but there’s not much she can do in a fictional biopic on a guy with muscles back in the 1800s, who looks old and hangovered from drinking madeira perhaps.

-Movie Review By Bhushan in Goa.