Thugs of
Hindostan ***
Dir: Vijay Krishna Acharya. With: Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir
Khan, Katrina Kaif, Fatima Sana Shaikh. 164 mins. Cert: 12A
Boosted by Baahubali,
commercial Indian cinema has big things planned before the year’s out, among
them Tamil superstar Rajinikanth’s return in 2.0 and Shah Rukh Khan reducing himself to a visual effect in
Christmas release Zero. This,
however, is the biggest of all: a 164-minute period swashbuckler that deploys
Bollywood’s grandest ever budget and megastars Aamir Khan and Amitabh Bachchan
to stage a pirate uprising against the East India Company. (As if it weren’t
big enough, it’s also playing widely in IMAX.) As early use of Benny Hill-style
fast-motion and some close-to-the-knuckle flirting between Khan and dancing
girl Katrina Kaif insinuate, it is also – not unlike Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean – big, daft
pantomime, and might be enjoyed as such with a school’s-out mindset and the
right bag of snacks.
You’ll need to make peace with the fact plot matters less than
the prospect of major stars running rings around one another. The first half
floats the question of who might best lead the rebellion: grizzled salt
Khudabaksh (Bachchan, still a mighty screen presence at 75, despite
understandable slowness in the action scenes) or Khan’s smirking, kohl-eyed
triple agent Firangi, who trots into view on an ass, having seemingly been
styled after Bob Dylan’s Alias in Pat
Garrett and Billy the Kid. Although a third option presents herself in
trainee warrior princess Zafira (Dangal’s Fatima Sana Shaikh, dourly tomboyish
here), the outcome is unusually boysy for modern Bollywood: it’s a sizeable
pity that Kaif, genuinely dazzling in her two musical numbers, should wind up
with less screen time than the donkey.
If it diverts to some degree, it’s largely because writer-director Vijay Krishna Acharya is far more interested in the pirate life than those Disney knockabouts. We get tactical sea battles, plenty of cove action, swordfights choreographed like dance numbers, even a fiery 19th century South Asian equivalent of a Norse burial; it’s a film with money to burn, and it unabashedly torches each rupee before your eyes. Granted, it gets less irreverent as it goes on, and in terms of historical exactitude, it surely places alongside those Bank Holiday staples Titanic and Muppet Treasure Island. Yet it has that rare and unmistakable look of an event movie that was huge fun to assemble; whether you’re watching in Hindi, Tamil or Telugu – or reliant on English subtitles – much of that enjoyment does translate.
Thugs of Hindostan is now playing in cinemas nationwide.
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