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Monday, February 16, 2015

Movie Review: Sholay

They even do spaghetti westerns better than we do!!!

Sholay is an excellent move. Despite a couple of sloppy visual mistakes (you can see the coupling towing a motorcycle and towards the end an assistant peeks his head up behind a bush behind a very pivotal scene), this is an excellent movie.

The acting is fabulous. The plot line engaging. The horse chases are amazing. There is a horse chase with a train, horse chasing carriages, bridges being destroyed. A guy taking a horse down with his bare hands!

It is filmed in a location with large rock formations - like the Vasquez rocks where so many US westerns were filmed so that the shootouts have that same western feel. It even has an Ennio Morricone style soundtrack! But I don't ever remember being this emotionally engaged - on the edge of my seat biting my fingernails with tension engaged - watching a Sergio Leone movie. And I love Sergio Leone.

The bad guy is crazy bad. The good guy is crazy too - his final scene where he fights the bad guy unarmed - you would NEVER see that in a US movie.

The story is heartbreaking at the end - I cried. Not as much as I do when reading a Zane Grey novel - but still - it's pretty heartbreaking and so well acted!!!

My one request is for someone good, like Vinod Chopra, to remake this movie starring Abhishek and Faran Akhtar. And I know this movie is so good no one wants to remake it, but ... the remake of Don with SRK is excellent and even better than the original. And I hear the remake of Agneepath is excellent too. With the right director and cast - yeah - I totally want to see what Abhishek does with the role!! And Faran - yeah- him too! What would make my fantasy remake of this movie complete? Amitabh in the role of Thukar.

This movie is a perfect example of why I've pretty much stopped watching western movies. Indian movies are better. Even their westerns are better!

This movie is available for purchase and rental through Amazon instant video.

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