22 July,2011 11:09 PM IST | | Shubha Shetty Saha
Singham
U/A; Action, Drama
Dir: Rohit Shetty
Cast: Ajay Devgn, Kajal Aggarwal, Prakash Raj,
Ashok Saraf, Sachin Khedekar, Sonali Kulkarni
''
Remember the phase that Bollywood suffered in the 80's? When action films were released with factory-like precision, each more mindless and insensitive than the other? Yes, the ones where the villains were uhm ufffd unattractive and threatened more and acted less.
Heroes went around bashing up 20 goons at a time and came out staggering unscathed, and heroines did nothing better than looking pretty for the hero, when he took a break from fighting. Singham is that kind of a movie.
Bajirao Singham (Ajay) is a cop with a heart, happy in his village Shivghad where everyone is ready to lay down their lives for him. Singham is generally an angry young man, when it comes to petty criminals.
However, at some point he crosses path with the bad man Jaykant Shikre (Prakash), who passes his time kidnapping and killing children with bare hands and doing such evil stuff just for the heck of it.
The story is about how Singham manages to triumph over Shikre, with of course a romantic track with girlfriend Kaavya (Kajal) thrown in.
Singham is a really brave man, and this is established through his dance moves, which embarrassingly include him flexing his fingers like a lion's claws and also, random roars in the background when he is about to strike someone.
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Those of you who still haven't got it, a brave man likes being compared to a lion and would go to any lengths to prove that fact.
The story starts with a lot of promise as an honest cop kills himself after failing to prove that he's not corrupt and his widow runs from pillar to post to get the truth out. But later the film peters down.
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The treatment is shoddy, background music is outdated (in fact, I almost expected to hear dishoom dishoom like in the 80's during the fights), the dialogues are unbelievably tacky and generally the film is tiring.
Ajay Devgn, of course, is a treat to watch. With that bod and that strut and of course those intense eyes, he is convincing as someone who can fly in the air and bring baddies down with one strike of his hand.
But Prakash Raj needs to be told to take it easy and not spend all his acting skills in one movie.
He talks non-stop and is all over the place. In fact, every one in this noisy film, including Ashok Saraf and Sachin Khedekar have mile long dialogues.
Kajal Agarwal is pretty. Period. This is the kind of movie, where anyone and everyone can walk into the Home Minister's office, abuse him and give him a kick in the rear. And if you do that, the minister's peon will honour you with a salute.
Nothing turns director Rohit Shetty on more than cars meeting mid air. We all know that by now. And this film has some breath taking action sequences, too. That's about it.
