Salman would have been better off hunting deer than doing Veer.

Grade: F

Veer

Indian Release Date: 22/01/10
CBFC Classification:  U/A
Running Length: 2 Hours 50 minutes

Cast: Salman Khan, Mithun Chakraborty, Sohail Khan, Zarine Khan, Jackie Shroff, Neena Gupta
Director: Anil Sharma
Screenplay: Shakitmaan Talwar & Salman Khan
Cinematography: Gopal Shah
Music: Sajid-Wajid

Looks like Salman Khan has challenged Akshay Kumar to a contest to judge who can inflict maximum pain upon the cinema going audience. What else can explain the appalling quality of his last couple of flicks, Main Aur Mrs.Khanna, Wanted, London Dreams, Yuvvraaj, Hello, God Tussi Great Ho. However his latest effort, Veer, which he claims to have written (actually copy cut pasted from the 1962 Yul Brynner – Tony Curtis starrer ‘Taras Bulba’, more on that later) puts the ‘A’ in abominable & redefines the term ‘cruel & painful’.

‘Veer’ is such a bloody (literally) monstrosity of unparalleled proportions, the type that makes you wonder if producers actually read scripts before they green-light a project (do scripts even exist for such/most projects?). I seriously considered approaching the ticket counter & demanding a refund of my hard earned cash.

The story is set during the 1880’s or is the 1860’s or 1900’s….ahhh….can’t ever really tell from the terrible art direction, set design & costumes. Anyways the Pindaris are a bunch of testosterone fueled warriors who resolve every matter by chopping off hands & heads, treat women as nothing more than property, drink copious amounts of alcohol & have a neat little hut where they have all their tribe gatherings (parties obviously “inspired” from those shown in Taras Bulba) which would seriously give competition to any rave party on a Goan beach. In short, they are no different from the thousand other “Warrior” clans which all our filmmakers assume roamed the land once upon a time. The Pindaris when not acting all ‘merry & gay’ look to extract revenge for a treachery committed by the Raja of Madhavgarh (Jackie Shroff in thick with the British Raj) on them which resulted in the death of 4,500 Pindaris, we are told repeatedly. The Pindari tribe’s second in command Prithvi Singh (Mithun Chakraborty) chops off the king’s hand (Jackie’s replacement prosthetic hand with all the gold & bracelets is an absolute hoot & reminded me of something Gulshan Grover had in Karzzzz) & takes a vow to not rest until he’s killed the Raja & his British allies (aaah nice, two birds with one stone, revenge & patriotism).

A son, Veer, is born to Prithvi, who takes another vow (Man! this guy swears a lot) to make him his instrument in extracting revenge. Since Prithvi has also obviously watched ‘300’ far too many times & been influenced by the Spartan way of making kids tough, poor little Veer too has to nearly drown in the rain as a newborn & another time bleed ketchup from his mouth while he tries to dunk his father into a pool of water. By the time he’s grown up, Veer’s shown to be a tough as nails, ‘can pull your guts outta ya butt’ kinda guy. His intro shows him riding a horse being oblivious to a branch in front of him until the last moment when he breaks through it with his bare hands & then turns to show the bruises on his palms to the audience, without wincing a bit (obviously his vision during horse riding is similar to Salman’s when driving a car). While looting a British train, Veer happens to see Princess Yashodhara (Zarine Khan) & promptly runs off with her broach which conveniently  happens to be her mother’s ‘aakhri nishaani’ (a broach is all that’s left of a queen? The Raja probably spent all the money on his golden hand). Veer does promptly return it though he keeps a part with himself since he’s so enamored by her beauty while she’s grateful to him & thinks the world of him for his ‘good deed of the day’ even though he’s just sliced & diced through a train full of people.

Soon enough Prithvi Singh decides to send his two sons (oh forgot to tell you, Veer has a brother called Punya who conspicuously looks & acts just as retarded as Sohail Khan, isn’t Veer so much like our dear Sallu?) to study the ways of the enemy in London. After touching down in a bogus looking London, Veer happens to meet Yashodhara again & also her two evil brothers who act like Indian ‘firangis’ (just like in those Manoj Kumar movies, bad wigs & worse accents). In the university Veer faces testing times such as racist professors, dancing competitions & sadomasochistic punishment sessions, but he prevails over them all cause…..he’s Veer after all. Love is bound to blossom between the princess & the pauper…. err warrior, until the two learn of each others true identities. To spice things up Veer also butchers Yashodhara’s obnoxious brothers & a dozen British officers right in the middle of the university lawns & still manages to return to India without any law enforcement agency even coming close to laying a finger on him.

From here on in the wake of the deaths of her brothers, the Princess accepts her role as the protector of Madhavgarh while Veer infiltrates the enemy camp under another guise & starts to get close to the Raja. Soon enough Yashodhara & Veer are both torn between their love & their families, leading to a ‘Romeo & Juliet’ style climax with a generous sprinkling of ‘Troy’ (2004).

First things first, no matter how much Salman Khan claims he wrote the story, he hasn’t. He’s simply picked up plot-to-plot, scene-to-scene, dialogue-to-dialogue from ‘Taras Bulba’ which itself is a highly suspect & naïve Hollywood treatment of the Cossacks-Polish strife, but compared to ‘Veer’ that movie is like a nuanced well documented recreation of the European conflict. There is some filler material which must have been the only thing original but most of that comes from other movies.

The narrative misses explaining & connecting certain events like Veer & Punya’s escape from London back to India or the last half an hour in which Veer runs back & forth between Madhavgarh & the Cossacks…uhh sorry the Pindaris with alarming ease without ever anyone from the Raja’s side even noticing who he is. The killing of Yashodhara’s brothers is treated so lightly as if it was just another thing that happens every second day with hardly anyone caring about them (no wonder they were packed off to London, no one liked them much I guess). The entire plot-segment which tries to setup the so called conflict for Yashodhara between choosing her love or kingdom are replete with pointless characters that add nothing to the plot but just drag the story & allow for a few more butt-numbing songs. The numerous songs add nothing to the movie other than increasing the already overlong running length & in turn testing your patience.  

Like I mentioned before, the sets & costumes don’t seem to belong to one single period but rather seem more like an amalgamation of anything that seemed exotic & ethnic (though orange pants with knee patches seemed to be the latest fashion back in the day) & don’t even get me started on the exceedingly poor recreation of London (especially after watching the nearly same period being recreated with precision in Sherlock Holmes a few weeks back) which looks like the back stage of some theatre troupe doing a Victorian play, except all the people seem to be more than happy to act as background dancers for the two Indian gypsies. Even the battle armor worn by everyone looks to be made of rubber or plastic.

The action sequences owe a lot to ‘300’ especially when it comes to all those slow-mo shots of people being hacked & blood spurting. The other major battle scenes have nothing you haven’t seen before, except they have a few nicely done panning shots. But the scenes that make you roar with laughter are those like the ones where Veer stands atop two horses & jumps onto a train or the pointless fight with another Pindari chieftain in which he pulls out the poor guy’s guts with his bare hands or the appalling ‘Fatality’ special-effects in the gladiator themed fight with an imposing British guy.

Salman Khan displays about exactly three expressions throughout, the glare, the love-struck look & the silent sneer. Sohail Khan does well simply by the virtue of being less irritating than his brother for once. Mithun Chakraborty tries to channel Yul Brynner & is probably the only half-decent performance in the entire cast though he looks dead as a log of wood when getting affectionate with Neena Gupta. Zarine Khan can’t emote beyond showing the effort she’s putting in to say her dialogues properly. Jackie Shroff overacts like his life depended on it.

Veer is precisely the reason why stars (read not actors) shouldn’t be given unlimited resources to make their fantasies come true. The movie doesn’t have a shred of originality nor accuracy and to top it all muddles India’s history while trying to channel a story originally derived from a movie made back in the 60’s. The Pindaris were nothing but dacoits who robbed anyone & everyone be it the British or the Marathas or the Rajputs & hardly cared for the things such as the concept of India & freedom from the British beyond their myopic little personal gains.

Recently in some press conference I had heard a gem of a line from Salman Khan, he was explaining how plants are important to the environment & his reason left me dumbfounded. He said that plants take in the nitrogen & convert it to oxygen! NITROGEN! Now that’s a real “Veer”, it takes real guts to make a statement like that on national television, if only he had stuck to doing that instead of making (writing) Veer, the world would have been such a funnier place.

Final Verdict: The only way you can enjoy Veer is after you’ve had a dozen Beer(s).

Grade: F

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