Sholay

If you liked "Once upon a time in the west", "The magnificent seven" and "A fistful of dollars", you will love "Sholay". It takes all the good ingredients of a western, spices it with a lot of Indian ingredients and lets it simmer until you get one of the finest "curry" westerns imaginable. Though obviously very much inspired by the "spaghetti" westerns of the late 1960s/early 1970s, this easily surpasses most of the films it's modeled after. A masterpiece.

The Indian filmmaker G.P. Sippy died last December at the age of 93. his son Ramesh directed this film, which remains the most famous Hindi-language movie and the biggest commercial success for Bollywood. If you want to watch one Bollywood film in his honor, this is it.

This epic has everything. It has a magnificent Seven type story, but there are only two who come to save the village. They are thieves hired by a former policeman to capture the bandit leader.

It is a spaghetti-western of sorts as there are plenty of horses, and shooting, and fights.

It is a lavish musical with amazing color and costumes as the villagers really put on a show for their simple festival of colors.

It has comedy, slapstick, romance (but NO kissing!), music, a little horror, almost continuous action, tragedy, and triumph. Like, I said, if you only see one Sippy production, this should be it.

This movie has everything, comedy, action, drama, romance, fun, emotions. Great performance by all the characters. They are remembered even today in 2004 after nearly 30 years of the film release. I heard that this movie is now re-released with remastered sound. wow ! cant' wait to fetch the DVD of this remastered version.

The most impressive role of Gabbar by Amjad Khan was portrayed extremely well.

Its also one the longest movie. Its quite normal for bollywood movies to be 3 hours long. But this one is even longer than this. But certainly ever minute of the movie is enjoyable.

This movie is my all time favorite.

I think Sholay is a great Hindi film of its times, although with the amount of praise and superlatives it has been getting throughout the years, I must admit it's a little overrated. The film was indeed ahead of its time in many ways. First, the action was really good - there were some glitches here and there, but it was far more credible than what the times had set the public for. Secondly, the attention to detail, as expected from Ramesh Sippy, is first-rate. Sippy, a great director whose combination of professional, technically skilled direction, impressive storytelling, and the delicate yet honest depiction of his stories, produced several classic Hindi pictures. Sholay is a good product although sadly it mixes too many genres and is overlong for the story it tells. It could have easily edited out some parts. Given the extraordinary brutality of the villainous characters and the situations, as well as the marked contrast between the good and the evil, I think the comedic parts (except for those of Basanti) were grossly redundant, among others, as they dragged the narrative and undermined its consistency as well as the minimalist approach that was so successfully employed by Sippy in some key scenes.

Set in a rural, remote region in southern India, the film is beautifully shot, and Sippy manages to capture the essence of the village and its people. One wonderful scene shows the routine of the village and the different activities of its inhabitants in the morning, a rare glimpse into the cultural weight of the place, which few directors would bother to tap into. This is where our heroes and villains are thrown, in an interesting story which benefits from Sippy's unique direction. The realism with which some of the situations are portrayed is striking, and it is matched by a careful handling of the proceedings in ways the Indian moviegoing public, which was used to being spoonfed by Hindi filmmakers, had not been accustomed to. Note for one the way the romance between Veeru and Radha is portrayed. Just watch the scene in which Jai is playing his harmonica as Radha is walking around and turning off the Kerosene lamps. Such subtlety is rarely seen in Hindi films. This is not to say that the film is devoid of any sentimentality. Still, the overall thing is really good - the film is both entertaining and then it is also quite moving and heartbreaking in some hard-hitting scenes, not to mention the famous, harrowing parts.

The film's authenticity is achieved in large parts through the acting, particularly the grounded, authentic performances of the main characters. Sholay is in my view Sanjeev Kumar's story as it is his character's determination that carries the narrative forward. He is tremendous. Dharmendra plays the energetic and happy-go-lucky Veeru pretty well, but Bachchan is fantastic in a subdued, quiet performance as Jai. Hema Malini is wonderful as the iconic, highly talkative and kind-hearted village belle Basanti; her comic timing is top-notch, and her dance numbers are never less than fabulous. Out of the two couple, it is Jaya Bhaduri of course who can always be trusted to do so much by doing so little. Her quietly understated performance is one of the film's assets, the other one being Amjad Khan's phenomenal turn as one of the greatest screen villains of Hindi cinema. Sholay is greatly aided by the great background score which enhances some of the most difficult scenes and helps alleviate others. R. D. Burman's soundtrack is as memorable as the film. Sholay is definitely a classic in many ways. It is not flawless, nor do I think it matters. In many ways it is a landmark film, and I'm sure non-Indians might enjoy it just as much.

This movie is just the best movie i have seen. (I have watched around 570 movies) (Its my favorite movie).It has all the elements that a good movie must have:

Excellent Dialogues.

Excellent Music.

Excellent Acting. (Even the extra's where excellent)

Excellent Story/Plot.

Good Songs.

And it has much genres, who are handled very well in this movie: Action/Comedy/Romance/Drama/Adventure/Thriller (not really, but a kind of Thriller)/Musical/Crime. Each word of this movie is excellent. I think it has the greatest story ever! I was hurted when i came to know that Mr. Ram Gopal Varma is remaking this classic... Despite becoming the most successful film of its time, it failed to win any major popular or critics awards. The lone Filmfare award it got went to M.S. Shinde for Best editing. The plot is about a retired police officer Thakur (Sanjeev Kumar) who hires two convicts Veeru and Jai (Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan) to capture Gabbar Singh (a Dacoit) who had killed the cop's entire family (except the cop and his daughter-in-law).

Who has not seen this movie, try it once, you will love it. *****