[Movie Review] Himmatwala: Even Maa Sherawaali’s Tiger Can’t Save the Day!

Cast: Ajay Devgan, Tamannaah, Paresh Rawal, Mahesh Manjrekar, Zarina Wahab
Director: Sajid Khan
Genre: Comedy, Drama

There lies a word in dictionary, ‘Dreadful’. The word is usually referred for something that is the cause of suffering and sorrow. Sajid Khan’s Himmatwala can be easily quoted in the dictionary beside that word, as an example for better comprehension to the readers. Or eventually, not many people will catch it, so it cannot even attain that feat. Sad for Sajid Khan!

When a movie starts with Sonakshi Sinha moonwalking on an appalling dance number, one ought to expect what lies in the hold of the remaining two and a half hours. The smarter ones will simply leave the theatres while the others will sit back so as to see the heights of clumsiness that can be achieved by the remake, oops, parody of 80’s Himmatwala.

No, there is no point in going into the plot details as it is nothing short of a heap of foul-smelling trash. Only thing you ought to know is that there is this son, Ravi (Ajay Devgan) who avenges his father’s death and the turmoil of his mother and sister from a local loony goon, Sher Singh (Mahesh Majrekar).

Rest assured people, there is not a whisper else in the story apart from a twist bomb dropped before the interval; and what an atrociously lame fizz that bomb was! Sigh!

Sorry Sajid Khan, you may have scored three back to back massive blockbusters, but you got your cards all terribly wrong this time. And guess who the king of the stack was? Yeah, Ajay Devgan! Limp-riding on trivialities, he perchance gave the most underwhelming performance of his career. Who to blame, Sajid Khan for writing such mundane script or the one who penned the inexplicably worthless dialogues?

Tamannaah tried her bit. She grooved when it was needed of her and regularly pitched, “I hate Garibs” with a retard-ness that may have you laughing for once. Paresh Rawal is wasted terribly with a squeaky voice as if someone is choking his throat; though, it did not help his cause to deliver a nuanced comic performance.

If this pile of cartoonish vileness was not enough, Himmatwala pays homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho by re-enacting the shower sequence in the most ghastly way possible. If the stick bashing was not enough, Ajay Devgan shamelessly uttered “Naha yeh raha tha, dho maine diya!”. Take my word that the master of suspense would have committed suicide if only he was alive today. Maybe now, his ghost will haunt Sajid Khan for the rest of his life and Maa Sherawaali’s tiger won’t save him either.

(first published in www.udaipurtimes.com)