Thugs of Hindostan

Thugs of Hindostan should have been promoted as a children’s film. The plot, characters, screenplay and a lot of the dialogue is something children would enjoy. And  the adults children with them would have found it appealing too since they would have a different mindset while watching the film.  While watching this film I was reminded of the funny and childish hero stories that would be shown in Doordarshan long back. The characters would have special powers to defeat a villain. The villain would be greedy and powerful. There would be some funny characters thrown in to bring in some humor. The costumes would be fitting for a TV fiction. There would be a certain ridiculousness to the simple plots and the dialogue would be immature.

Thugs of HIndostan is slightly more complex in its make. But the ridiculousness is still there. In heaps. The background music for certain characters and some animal or bird announcing the protagonist’s arrival is typical of the Ali baba stories.  Aamir Khan plays a complex thug like character, actually the only real thug in the film. He is that peculiar verbose joker kind of a guy who converts to a hero from a thug. He keeps vacillating between the good and the evil. The evil beings played by the British against the good guerilla pirate type Indians. The struggle for freedom ensues after a princess loses her parents, kingdom and freedom to the British.

Amitabh has a great presence and strong purposeful performance. The atrocity called Katrina Kaif continues to torture. She is for cinema what Rahul Gandhi is for politics. Fatima Shaikh looks dull and boring. Her part is mostly shooting arrows in mid air and exchanging glances with Amitabh. The sets and locales are straight out of a pirate film with ancient ships near tropical islands. Overall it’s a predictive and boring experience. There is no entertainment. Maybe the directors were banking on the star cast. This one can be missed.

Rating – 2 / 5