Veer has nothing to make you feel proud of. You rather feel sad for the dozens of horses used in the movie. If not the actors or the crew, the poor animals wasted their valuable time featuring themselves next to the bodybuilder actor of Bollywood. But yes, finally, Salman Khan has got the right opportunity to show off his muscles. Well, this however has nothing to do with the credibility of Veer.
Veer is one more of the overrated Bollywood masalas showcasing how Indians fought hard to free their country from the Mughal Empire in the past. If not through cricket like in “Lagaan”, “Veer” has Pindaris from an uncertain origin in India who are more powerful than Superman and Spiderman and all those superheroes we have so far seen in movies.
The maker of “Gadar,” director Sharma now replaces Sunny Deol’s punches with Salman Khan’s superhero action. Khan can actually extract human flesh and can bring out the heart if he is maddened. Even after taking your heart out, he will not stop there. Before you die, he will tell you the exact weight of your heart. With bare hands, Khan blocks the blows of sharp swords and breaks them into pieces. Well, it looks so exaggerated in the film.
Please don’t take children below 18 to cinema theaters for Veer is rich in violent scenes that are overly done and are put forcefully to make sure Salman Khan get enough space to show his biceps and triceps. Though the action scenes seem to have been inspired by Hollywood’s blockbuster 300, Veer however fails to go anywhere near it. With director Sharma promoting the film as if it is going to be the film of the millennium, in reality, Veer doesn’t even stand as the movie of the month.
Sharma still seems to be in a bad hangover of Gadar that became a zabardast hit. It’s high time for Sharma to get over the Deol’s charm because Salman Khan does nothing exceptional or Wow in Veer.
Veer is a tale of a Pindari clan who gets cheated and removed from their land by the King of Madhavgarh (Jackie Shroff), a supporter of the imperialist British. This provokes a war, and in the massacre, the fierce warrior of Pindari, Prithivi (Mithun Chakroborty) chops off one of the hands of the king.
Years have gone, and now Veer (Salman Khan), son of Prithivi, is all ready to fight back with the King of Madhavgarh and take the revenge. He is trained day and night so that he transforms into a superhero, someone who can chase the running train on a horse and can even jump on a horse to the colonial train. By the time Veer is all set to fight back with the goras, he falls in love with the princess Yashodhara (Zarine Khan) and goes to London to understand British politics. Sadly, he finds out that Yashodhara is the daughter of his father’s biggest enemy – the King of Madhavgarh. Veer finds out a different way of taking the revenge; a more diplomatic approach. This is however not accepted by his father who cannot turn away from his vow of destroying the king, the British and their supporters who killed his 4,000 Pindari soldiers in a war 25 years ago.
Over and again, the bloodshed gets on your nerves. Salman Khan has no more wow factor; it’s just the body that he sells in Bollywood. Newcomer Zarine Khan is a look-alike of Katrina Kaif. The 40+ bachelor Khan really needs to grow up now. The formula of introducing look-alikes of the actresses after a series of heartbreaks no more works now. It neither did while Khan introduced a copy of Aishwarya Rai in “Lucky” and now Katrina Kaif’s duplicate is just Kaif’s caliber – very plastic acting. Sohail Khan is too much with his jocular character, that too in a stale script. Jackie Shroff and Mithun do a bit of acting like always while Neena Gupta is decent.
I didn’t understand why music director Sajid/Wajid kept on repeating the song Surili Ankhiyowali in the film unnecessarily. By the time you come to the interval, you actually forget the count. Maybe it’s because even if the film does no good, people will be used to with the song. This formula no more works now. And all the goris in the movie are nothing but just mere recreations for eyes.
You got to be very Veer (brave) to stay glued inside the cinema hall for 2.45 hours to tolerate this massive bloodshed of a stale screenplay, poor script and mixed acting blended with expectations of an overambitious director.
Starring: Salman Khan, Sohail Khan, Mithun Chakraborty, Jackie Shroff, Zarine Khan, Lisa Lazarus, Gita Soto, Neena Gupta, Tim Laurence, and William Chubb
Directed by: Anil Sharma
Screenplay: Shaktiman Talwar
Story by: Salman Khan
PG Rating: 18 and above [Contains a lot of violence]
Rating: * ½
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