Veer: A review

In his interviews Salman Khan has described his writing debut Veer as a revenge story, an action film and also as a romance. Coming from the son of one half of the greatest Bollywood screenwriter duo (Salim Khan of Salim-Javed) Salman should have known better. In the 20 years that his Taras Bulba-inspired epic has simmered in his head, Veer has turned into a comedy. Intentionally in a couple of scenes, unintentionally in the others.

Why, oh why, does Salman Khan need to do all this? Blessed with a stardom, where he needs to just walk into the frame and feel Wanted, Salman really doesn’t need a Veer in his filmography. We love him in his ganjees and jeans, his strange accent and squeaky giggle. His time travel should have been strictly restricted to that spoofy Mughal-e-Azam dream sequence where he imagines himself as Prince Salim in Wanted.

But the period parody called Veer continues for a whole 160 minutes and really, you need to be a braveheart to sit through this one. Inspired from Nikolai Gogol’s — remember the Dostoevsky admission: “We all came from Gogol’s overcoat”? — short story Taras Bulba, Veer revolves around a fearless warrior tribe called Pindari that fights the British, very much like the Russian Cossacks, who went to war with Poland.

Set in the second half of the 19th century, Veer has its own history. The Maharaja of Madhavpur (Jackie Shroff) plotted with the British and got 4,500 Pindaris killed off. One of the Pindaris, Prithvi (Mithun Chakraborty) cut off the king’s right hand but couldn’t finish off the enemy. So his son Veer (Salman Khan) is injected the venom to grow up and take revenge — “waqt ko tujhse bahut ummeedein hai”.

But before that waqt arrives, Salman and his brother (Sohail Khan) are sent to London. Why? To adopt the firangis’ fitrati soch! And director Anil Sharma — still basking in Sunny Deol’s decade-old anti-Pakistani fervour in Gadar — is given the licence to pack in the anti-British patriotic punches in Salman’s mouth.

By the time Veer comes back, he has fallen in love with the king’s daughter Yashodhara (Zarine Khan) and killed off the king’s son (Puru Rajkumar). And you don’t need to be a member of Mensa to figure out what happens in the second half of the film.

The attempt is clear. Like his earlier films, here too Anil Sharma tries to stage a massy and melodramatic frontbencher-pleaser, replete with time-tested filmi ethos of family and love. And while there are moments when claps and ceetees would greet Salman’s dialogues — like his catchphrase: “jahan se pakadta hoon paanch ser gosht nikaal deta hoon(!)” — the effect is comical and, unlike Wanted, very uncool.

It’s evident that Salman himself has given a lot of heart and soul along with buckets of real sweat and fake blood to Veer. But Salman Khan fighting with swords and spears, armour and artillery looks like Sir Don Bradman trying to pinch-hit in a KKR tee and pyjama under the floodlights. And with that nightmarish hairstyle, Salman really looks out of place. With Sohail Khan (he and Uday Chopra should be banned from being re-launched) in tow, at times the two seem to have walked over from the sets of Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya. Sallu bhai, you really need to just chill!

Zarine Khan does look like Katrina Kaif, especially her left profile, only that the new girl is a lot more rounded. The same dubbing artiste doesn’t let the extra pounds camouflage the similarity. And just like Katrina was a joke in her first few films, Zarine doesn’t have a second expression, which would wrongly suggest she has one.

Even in the middle of the madding crowd, you cannot not like Mithun. There is always a guilty pleasure in watching the legend break into an impromptu jig (here he goes dance dance with Neena Gupta) and mouth the corniest of lines. But if there’s one set of lips where “hum sirf angrezon ke khoon peete hain” sits right, it’s Mithunda.

No such luck with Jaggu Dada. Jackie Shroff really should retire because it hurts to see the man try. Every time he comes on screen, you wonder if he would recommend Musli Power Extra to the others. Because he sure looks like a fitting brand ambassador.

Technically, Veer is okay. Gopal Shah shoots the Indian portions with warm tones and the London scenes appropriately cold. Tinu Verma choreographs the Salman-Mithun climactic fight very well. But the long shots of the marching armies look strictly computer-generated. Barring Rahat Fateh Ali Khan’s Surili ankhionwaale, Sajid-Wajid’s music is not deserving of the canvas. Monty Sharma’s background score, though, is apt.

Two decades back this Salman Khan story with Sanjay Dutt (as Salman) and Amitabh Bachchan (as Mithun) might have been watchable, but in 2010 it is quite an epic debacle.

Taking a cue from the famous Fly trailer, our advice: Be brave, be very brave to watch Veer.


Pratim D. Gupta, t2