srirammeera

Legend.

The perfect Hindi masala action romance comedy thriller. And the opening train heist scene shot LIVE, still one of the best ever in cinematic history.

Every cast & crew member at the peak of their careers.

It made Gabbar Singh synonymous with Villainy and turned Amjad Khan into an overnight all-India sensation.

And of course it shot Bachchan into superstardom, even though his was not the main role.

The script and dialogue - all of it - was memorized start to finish by children who came of age with Sholay...... and became part of daily colloquialisms.

Who can ever forget iconic lines like "Kyon Thakur? Ab tak jinda ho??" Not to mention the permanent classic "kitne aadmi..........?"

Very few if any other Indian movie comes even close as a total package. Even now circa 2025.

I was fortunate to watch this in theaters in true 70mm format as it was meant to be seen.

No further reviews needed. Just watch it.

🙏🙏🙏

Effective but really grim movie, about an extremely dark time in Europe during the Nazi occupation. It's about the assassination of the Nazi butcher Heydrich by Czech resistance heroes, and its bloody aftermath - on which many books and other movies too have been made, the most famous being Operation Daybreak in the 70s.

This movie packs some star power as well (Cillian Murphy, Jamie Dornan, Charlotte Le Bon etc) but they never overwhelm or distract from the central story. The focus here is on the main Czech heroes and not so much on the Germans (for which you need to watch the other movie The Man with the Iron Heart - that focuses on Heydrich)

A Hard-hitting and haunting piece of history that will stay with you for a long time.

Good movie with some haunting moments. A young Christian Bale has done an amazing job foretelling of greater acting glories to come (as we all know by now).

It's based on JG Ballard's novel of the same name and while it is deeply set in a specific historical context it should not be confused with history nor should anyone go looking for Asian DEI issues in this movie.

It's a coming of age story of a boy caught up in brutal merciless times.

It's also a Spielberg movie which means no matter how great it is - and Spielberg is a great director, one of the best which is not open for discussion - it will continue to be anchored in the white savior narrative template.

Spielberg like everyone or anyone else will work within the intellectual scaffolding of whatever era and milieu he was born in and shaped by - and obviously his forte is immensely entertaining blockbusters like Jaws, ET and Jurassic Park (none of which this movie should be compared with)

Looked at in another way would you for eg., expect say one of the greatest Bollywood directors to make an epic about the US Civil war?

The great Satyajit Ray said it honestly when he explained why he made movies in Bengali only - that it was the only soil or dough he knew how to work with and anything else would be less authentic.

So within those limitations this is a good movie with memorable haunting moments - but don't go in expecting to be entertained.

At more than 2.5 hrs it's a slow thoughtful movie with some actually amazing moments like only Spielberg can produce.

Definitely worth watching.