Gabbar is Back

In a country where a movie like Rang De Basanthi has made a big impact and set a film making benchmark, it is quite difficult to achieve that brilliance. With his first hindi movie Gabbar is Back, director Krish aspires to do something like that. But with very little creative modifications to suit the sensibilities and interest of the modern day viewer, this customized justice story is too cold to inspire you with its content.

Gabbar is the pseudo name of a guy whom along with his gang punishes the most corrupted man in any department. Obviously he becomes a headache for the corrupted officers, police and the politicians. The hunt for Gabbar, the reason behind his anger and how it influences the people is the main content of this Akshay Kumar starrer.

One thing I felt good about the Murugadoss version Ramana was that it had a Vijayakanth who looked quite a common man with some grace in his attire that suits the getup of an educated and focused college professor. When it comes to Gabbar, the main problem is that the hero doesn’t look like a professor and he is more of a Rowdy Rathore. The guy wears dress that looks like track suits and teaches physics to students by beating up bad guys. What Ramana tried to achieve was creating a wave in people to react against corruption. But here it becomes more of a commercial agenda that is desperate to use the new salt n pepper look of Akshay Kumar and also his heropanti.

The movie uses the acrobat in Akshay Kumar more than the actor in him. Shruti Haasan was disappointing and can’t be blamed much as her character was written poorly. In Suman’s character’s case also, the poor writing makes us hate the character more than the reason of being the antagonist. Every time the guy says “I am a brand”, I wanted to scream out like Imran of ZNMD who asks Arjun to shut up when he repeats that “Likha hua hei” dialogue. Sunil Grover was offered a good role as the police constable.

Direction wise Krish couldn’t take the movie to that enlightening phase and it just remained as a cold narration of heroics. The script has taken away most of the over sentimental elements of Ramana and that has caused some problems in the emotional base of the movie. The dialogues aren’t that catchy. Music was nice and fair-enough cinematography from Neerav Shah. They have utilized Akshay Kumar as a stunt man and they should have roped in a fat guy to do the body double of Suman.

Gabbar is back is a frozen masala dish that needs some heating at least to get to that okay point. The rating for the movie is 2/5. It won’t end corruption but we still can.