Remembering the day, when I first heard Sajid Khan announcing an official remake of Jeetendra, Sridevi starrer HIMMATWALA released in 1983, I was really shocked since it was not a great film in terms of content despite of being a big hit in those tough years. Now the phrase 'those tough years' has been used here, since the decade of 80s is apparently considered to be the most forgettable, amateurish and indecisive decade of Bollywood in the history of its 100 years of film- making as far as the commercial films are concerned. So making a remake of a film selected from that era was quite strange and weird to accept all of a sudden. Yet considering the successful track record of Sajid Khan, I thought that probably he might have cracked some worth trying comic idea within the same storyline and maybe would come up with something interesting rediscovering the 80s in his own version.
But surprisingly it was really unacceptable to find that Sajid does nothing of that sort in his over-hyped film to please the new age viewers and just sticks to the same old melodramatic script full of all clichéd plots not appealing to the present net generation at all. Now here an important question arises, that if one really is willing to see a film chosen from that forgotten era of the 80s, then he can easily opt for the original only, which at least would provide him the feeling of that 'Pleasant Nostalgia' watching the jumping jack, Jeetendra and the owner of thundering thighs, Sridevi along with the incomparable witty Kader Khan performing at their best. And if he can easily get to see the film on the net just for free or on a DVD for only a few rupees then why on earth he would like to see the same outdated acts being performed by the present big stars at a cost of a high priced ticket?
In other words, if Sajid simply assumed that the viewers in 2013 will really be amused to see Ajay Devgan deliberately doing all those over the top fights and emotional sequences without any contemporary touches or favourable changes introduced, then he was gravely mistaken in doing so, because the films utterly fails to make any kind of entertaining or emotional connect of that sort with the viewers in its pretty long length of 150 minutes. And the same can also be said for its entire cast too wherein Ajay Devgan looks like a clown performing in that peculiar style of the 80s hero, Tamannajust manages to look beautiful awfully speaking "I hate Gareebs" in a childish tone and one truly feels pity seeing an extremely gifted actor Paresh Rawal performing such a silly act wearing a horrible wig. To add further Sajid's own self praised film falls completely flat in its soundtrack department too with the remixed tracks missing the required bubbly spirit and the fresh songs simply falling into the category of below average. However the cinematography does try to give you something to watch and so does the background music desperately trying to pump up the blood at regular intervals.
Further replying to the bragging statements given by the director weeks before the release of his film I would like to say that for me neither Ajay's entry had anything exceptional to cheer for nor I could appreciate the stupid spoof played on Alfred Hitchcock's cult classic PSYCHO. So, if Sajid is firm on his statement of paying back the ticket amount to those who didn't feel like clapping on Ajay's entry in the film, then probably he would have to spend a lot paying many like-minded friends disagreeing to his assurances given like myself. In addition I also have another question for the director that if he was really making a film for that common man of the interiors who comes into the theater just for his escapist entertainment, then why were the few subtitles shown in the film written in English and not Hindi?
Anyway, coming to the only silver lining in this black cloud, I would like to mention its two action sequences with the TIGER which easily transported me back to those years when we eagerly used to wait for a tiger fight in a film particularly the ones featuring the Garam Dharam. May be the kids would enjoy this more than the mature audiences which might become the only saving grace of the film to sustain in the home video market. Nevertheless, the truth remains that while watching the tiger in this bad remake, I just had the famous slogan in mind in a different form which said, "Save This Tiger" instead of "Save The Tiger" ironically.
Summing up, one really needs guts to see this HIMMATWALA made with some questionable expectations by the makers, religiously following its outdated original of the past lacking the much needed appeal for the current generation.
