This Vijay Gilani production of an Anil Sharma movie scripted by our very own Salman Khan,has you making more trips to the candy bar than the frequency of Salmans bare chested act.
Setup as a battle between an obscure alcoholic tribe in Rajasthan,thePindharis and the Rajputs during British RAJ, this three hour yarn has Salman Khan play Veer,the son of Mithun Chakraborty , a Pindhari who seeks to avenge the injustice meted out to his clan of hooligans by a Rajput king essayed by Jackie Shroff, through his allegiance to the British feifdom.So it must be that Veer as a baby is drenched in the rain by Mithun who justifies his act by proclaiming him to be a Pindhari.Poor child, i hope the parents of that unfortunate soul had immunized it with the 100 odd vaccinations before handing it over to our man of the moment-Mithun. As expected the child grows to be a man enough, who goes about chopping hands and bathing in alcohol every once in a while, until he meets Yashodhara, a woman of royal lineage played by newbie Zarine Khan,that gets him out of his stupor and woo her in the most predictable manner.The remaining bit of the first half focusses on his effort to get to her and a bit of history lessons,like being sent to the University College London, to understand the ways of the British or posing to be royal enough to vanquish the white skinned mortals.Now why does one have to demean a great institution like UCL to understand British ways and manners and when did tribals get admitted there?Post interval, this torture of a saga continues with the protagonist coming in contact with the brothers of his love interest played by Puru Rajkumar and Aryan Vaid, both of whom look like they have been woken inbetween a time travel experiment, fizzed out and clueless. The movie snails further from cliche to cliche that begins with Veer arriving at the opportune moment to save his brother with an unfathomable name,played by Sohail Khan ,takes a break with Jackie Shroff and Zarine Khan proclaiming to be father and daughter and ends, with Salman Khan marrying her at the risk of knocking off her father and being born as his son after being conked off in a silly bullet dodging exercise.
While there is no doubt that Salman is a star, frankly, he is no Russell Crowe or Mel Gibson which he tries hard to be like.However, ironically, it is his presence in the movie that makes this ketchup fest a wee bit palatable. Zarine Khan as princess Yashodhara does not emote well enough to justify her act or selection. She is no more than a pretty face prancing around and emoting oh so minimally. The leading lady of this flick would do well to get some serious workouts in order to sustain a long innings apart from wholesome tips and treats on acting and emotion.
Director Anil Sharma seems to have taken a fascination for patriotic movies but does not demonstrate the sophistication desired of a historical epic of some proportion as Veer. The usage of graphics that are quick to be differentiated by the untrained eye and average camerawork do not warrant for a great historical adventure. Music by Sajid-Wajid and the background score by Monty offer nothing new and are inspired pieces that crop up every once in a while almost sounding like caller ringtones that signal the arrival of Veer to Yashodhara.How banal.
Considering that the script has been in the making for long and so has the movie, the crew of Veer could have potentially put the money invested, to good use rather than resorting to on screen situational and technical cliches that remind one of movies made four generations ago, a la Manmohan Desai and BR Chopra.
All said and done, this movie scores 1 out of 5 for having wasted the efforts of the tomato ketchup industry,that otherwise could have improved the taste of the last plate of samosa at the snack bar.
Signing Off.....
Eashwar
Eashwar
