A common man becomes the head of a vigilante group to fight corruption after a personal tragedy.
A remake of AR Murugadoss’ Tamil film, Ramanaa (2002), also made later in Telugu as Tagore (2003), Gabbar Is Back (GIB) is proof yet again that there is nothing worse than when a South style masala ‘entertainer’ goes wrong. Leave alone cinema aesthetics or some semblance of logic, which I have to add one was not looking for, but GIB fails big time even keeping just the entertainment factor in mind. Its so called items are simply dull and unimaginative, making for heavy-handed viewing.
The film seems to be a more of a business proposition with producer Sanjay Leela Bhansali and actor Akshay Kumar getting back together post Rowdy Rathore (2012) and following up on their successful formula by re-making another South hit. However, nothing works in this surprisingly shoddily made film, which takes itself too seriously for its own good. The plodding tale, questionably propagating civil vigilanteism against corruption, is stale, highly predictable, and barring the odd sequence (getting a widow justice from a corrupt hospital) or the occasional witty dialogue, GIB has nothing going for it. Loud as hell with one of the most deafening and irritating background scores, the film suffers from poor writing, woeful performances (except to an extent Akshay Kumar and Sunil Grover), and surprisingly weak technicalities for such a big-budget star vehicle. And to add insult to injury, poor Amjad Khan must be turning in his grave many times over, looking at what has been done to his iconic dialogues from Sholay!
Akshay Kumar does try to do as much of a salvage act as he can but both, the script and the disappointing direction (Telugu director Krish) defeat him, and he too adds his bit of ham to all the bacon and sausage there is by the time the film reaches its climax. Shruti Haasan continues to be a total embarrassment as an actress, while Telugu actor Suman as the main villain and Jaideep Ahlawat as an investigating officer come across as cartoonish to say the least. Sunil Grover comes off better comparatively as the earnest constable put down by his superiors but the rest of the cast are awful and yes, terribly loud. Kareena Kapoor makes little impact in her cameo, while Chitrangda Singh looks dreadful and absolutely lusterless in the regulatory item number.
The camerawork, editing and sound do nothing for the film, while the music, song picturizations and action sequences are nothing to write home about either. And the less said about the VFX bits, the better. All in all, GIB is simply not happening and is truly avoidable fare.
Hindi, Action, Drama, Color