Sholay (1975)

• Year: 1975
• Released: 15 Aug 1975
• Country: India
• Adwords: 5 wins & 4 nominations
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073707/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sholay
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: Hindi
• MPA Rating: Not Rated
• Genre: Action, Adventure, Comedy
• Runtime: 162 min
• Writer: Javed Akhtar, Salim Khan
• Director: Ramesh Sippy
• Cast: Sanjeev Kumar, Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan
• Keywords: police, fight, village, bandit,

	8.1/10
	92% – Critics
	95% – Audience

Sholay Storyline

Thakur Baldev Singh (Sanjeev Kumar) seeks to avenge the cold-blooded massacre of his family at the hands of notorious bandit Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan). Since he is unable to do so on his own, he recruits Veeru (Dharmendra) and Jaidev (Amitabh Bachchan). Both are jailbirds and have been in and out of various jails. They are reportedly known to carry out any work provided the compensation is right. Both agree to capture Gabbar Singh alive and hand him over to Baldev Singh. Things do not go as planned. Veeru falls for local horse-carriage driver Basanti (Hema Malini), and Jai starts to have romantic feelings for Baldev Singh’s widowed daughter-in-law Radha (Jaya Bhaduri). To make matters worse, Gabbar has sworn to kill both Jai and Veeru, and he holds Basanti as a hostage to lure them to him.

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Sholay Movie Reviews

The Magnificent Two Samurai…

Epic in all proportions, a thoroughly entertaining wild east cowboyesque film fizzing with vengeance, violence and, for the time, visionary film making and performances. There’s a reason some films embrace longevity and not just through their duration, if you fancy a wild, fierce, ferocious and untamed piece of excitement then set aside an hour or three and a half, charge your beaker to the rim with stimulants and embrace a unique and original take on an often visited theme that wont leave you disappointed.

Bollywood western classic

On a personal vendetta, retired policeman Thakur Baldev Singh recruits lifelong thieves Veeru and Jai to capture bandit leader Gabbar Singh. Two years earlier, Thakur had captured the two thieves. While transporting them on a train, they are attacked by bandits. Thakur releases them to help fight off the bandits. He becomes severely wounded in the fight but the guys risk imprisonment to save his life after flipping a coin for the decision. Along the way, the boys befriend talkative village girl Basanti.

This is a blending of Bollywood and a spaghetti western. It definitely has elements of both and is able mix them well. There are lots of action although sometimes they fall short in terms of staging. There is also the song and dance element. There is broad comedy. I like Basanti but I’m less taken with the Hitler-stached jailer. He is way too broad. The main leads are charismatic and compelling. Overall, there is a solid Magnificent Seven feel and this is only a small step beneath that level of cinema.

“An honorable death is any day better than a life of humiliation.”

Obviously this film has a huge following and is one of the most successful Indian movies ever. So you’ll have to excuse this viewer for not quite getting what the fuss is all about. The principal characters here reminded me of those Seventies TV undercover cops, Starsky and Hutch. That would be Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul, as if they were plopped down right in the middle of an earlier decade’s spaghetti Western flick. It’s got all the ingredients – an intimidating villain on the order of Claude Akins (I would have said Lee Van Cleef, but Gabbar Singh wasn’t tall and lanky), a Eurowest score in parts, and desert cactus as part of the landscape. It’s got singing cowboys too, but that’s a throwback to the Roy Rogers and Gene Autry movies of the Forties and Fifties.

On top of that, the picture drones on for over three hours, with not much going on that couldn’t have been reduced to a more comfortable two hour or so run time. And right in the middle of it, there’s a scene in which a Hitler knock-off appears for an altogether embarrassing sequence of near pratfalls that’s just stupid, to put it as mildly as I can. Seriously, I don’t understand what qualifies this as one of the best ever, I had all I could do to keep my trigger finger off the fast forward button as I tried to let this sink in.

For some balance perhaps, I will say that I liked the Festival of Colors celebration and dance. I don’t know whether that was an actual event that occurs in India or if it was made up for the movie, but that held out some promise as an innovative touch. If you’re on the fence for watching the movie after reading this review, I suggest flipping a coin. Heads you watch it, or heads you watch it. You’ll get what I mean by the end of the picture.