HIMMATWALA: MORONIC RETRO

In a scene, Ajay Devgn tickles Paresh Rawal. Then he says," pehle main hasaata hoon, phir roolata hoon." This is director Sajid Khan' intention, clearly.  

To watch Himmatwala in the name of 'masala' mindless entertainment, you need to be seriously bored with your life. You also need to admire Sajid Khan's guts to put together complete nonsense and pass it off as some kind of a spoof of the eighties.

In 1983,Himmatwala starring Sridevi and Jeetendra was a blockbuster. This one has no such hope.

Here's the lowdown on the lowbrow story (Sajid Khan). Ravi (Ajay Devgn) is a wrestler who makes his 'entry'  with the back of his head, a rod around his neck. He easily splits open the heavyweight pipe and announces himself as the 'himmatwala' who takes on challenges. Next he takes the train to Ramnagar where no man ventures because of a tyrant goon, sarpanch called Sher Singh (Mahesh Manjrekar) ruling the village. Only he is less goon, more cartoon.  He has a sidekick who is is his 'saala', Narayan Das  (Paresh Rawal. The difference between the two is that Sher Singh has a moustache that goes upwards and Narayan's moustache points downwards. Both love prancing around to music or rather Sajid Khan's horrific tunes, trying to be funny. The idea of humour is limited to dancing in desperation with crabs crawling inside their pants.

Ravi meets his poor mother in a white sari, cooking outside a hut while his pretty and helpless sister carries tattered clothes to stitch. His opening line to them in all seriousness is, "Oh, mujhe laga ki tum log mar chuke ho." Flashbacks show Sher Singh's atrocities and Ravi's own identity in a manner, more predictable than the sun and the moon. There is also a 'hunterwaali',Sher Singh's obnoxious and spoilt daughter,Rekha (Tamannaah Bhatia ) who walks around with a whip and lets loose a tiger to show her own power against Devgn's. Soon,the  two get together, do the famous 'ta thaiya ' dance in front of Sher Singh. You sit back in resignation and admire Tamannah's perfect waist and navel and miss Sridevi's thunder thighs and Jeetendra's sincerity. Meanwhile, the poor, pretty sister goes through gang rape attempts and beatings at the hands of her husband, Narayan's son (Adhyayan Suman)who sounds like a squealing teenager when he tries to be a ferocious baddie.

When the brandishing of whips, showing of muscles, prancing around gets wearisome, they turn to dialogues(Farhad, Sajid) worse than PJs.Sample them..."naha tu raha tha, dhoya maine"...keedon ki basti mein kaun sa aa gaya makoda"...kaan ke neeche baja kar Kanpur pahucha doonga"..

Then there are lyrics (Sameer Anjaan) in keeping with the utter downmarket humour that go like  "..Maar de bum pe laat.." besides the original ones by Indeevar.

None of the actors merit any appreciation except Tamannah Bhatia who can pull of anything with conviction. Leena Jumani as the hapless sister is more tolerable than the rest.Rawal and Manjrekar are disgusting in their attempt at buffoonery. Devgn just chills out,watching the no show.

If all of this is not enough to make you go mad, there is also a supposed spoof on Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho with Mahesh Manjrekar in a shower.

As the dialogue before the scene says,"shuru hogi kahani ek Psycho ki". Hitchcock must be turning multiple times in his grave at the moronic horror of psycho humour.