Review: Veer
ACTION REPLAY
It’s too long, too bland – and yet, this muscular throwback to a yesteryear cinema culture isn’t without its occasional pleasures.
JAN 24, 2010 – STUCK FOR A BEGINNING FOR this review, and after a fair amount of pencil chewing before a blank computer screen – a metaphorical endeavour, of course, now that graphite-riddled writing implements have gone the way of the giganotosaurus – I sought inspiration from my appraisal of Apne, the previous offering from director Anil Sharma. There, I’d observed, “When I say Apne is a good movie, I mean that it’s a good movie of the kind that’s often derisively labelled a single-screen movie. It is, in other words, an utter anachronism in this multiplex age, meant only for those with either the patience or the stomach – preferably a bit of both – to sit through a near-mythical, Old Bollywood narrative…” That’s the opening for Veer, right there – except that I wouldn’t go so far as to classify this Salman Khan starring (and Salman Khan written) faux-historical as “good!” (Okayish would serve as a more accurate assessment.)
So we have, for the 2976th time, a hero who falls for the villain’s daughter, and a villain (Jackie Shroff) who’s not just the embodiment of evil but a sworn enemy of the hero’s father. Yes, it’s the old Romeo-Juliet palimpsest, but thankfully shorn of the shrew-taming plot device that’s often recycled when the lovers hail from opposite sides of the tracks. The gimmick – the USP; the eye-grabbing label on this particular vial of snake oil – is that the story unfurls under the Union Jack. The time is the 1920s, when London is festooned with posters of Janet Gaynor in Street Angel, and back home, decidedly unangelic tribal clans like the Pindaris are at war with the Rajputs, much to the delight of the British, whose philosophy was to stroke their pencil moustaches as they divided and ruled.
To this effect, Lord Macaulay encouraged Indians to study in England, so they would transform into little brown sahibs, imbibing the genteel essences of Western civilisation and turning their backs on the heat and dust of their homeland. The Pindari chieftain Prithvi Singh (Mithun Chakraborty), too, dispatches his son Veer (Salman Khan) to what our older films referred to as vilayat. Veer is already something of a modernist, at least to the extent that a defiantly old-school performer like Salman Khan can project a modern persona on screen. Early on, he saves a goat from being sacrificed at the altar, thus espousing an intriguing mishmash of the progressive and the regressive. Veer appears nominally opposed to superstitious practices, but at the same time, he proposes that the blades of the Pindaris will find better purpose in decapitating goras rather than goats. (“Talwar sirf firangiyon ki gardanon ke liye hai,” Veer roars. Thrice!) This mix of Western cool thinking and Eastern hot blood is further enhanced by Veer’s stint in England – he learns to be civilised in the presence of the British, while back home, he’s as cheerful a barbarian as the next Pindari.
And yet, he observes enough over there to realise that, like the British, Indians need to think of themselves as a nation, and it’s time they shucked off petty rivalries (say, the Pindaris versus the Rajputs) and united against a common enemy. So far, so good – for these action-oriented portions play like a greatest-hits compilation of masala-movie images down the decades. If Mithun offers homage to his own Kasam Paida Karne Wale Ki as he holds aloft his infant son in the pouring rain, symbolically inuring the child to all kinds of calamity, Salman makes a nod to Amitabh Bachchan in Mard lassoing a chopper and preventing it from lifting off (here, Veer halts a hansom cab in London by sticking out a hand and grabbing a spoke), and there’s even an invocation of the Mahabharata (which is quoted explicitly) when the climactic battle pits kith against kin in a quest that isn’t so much about uprooting evil as upholding dharma.
The look of Veer is easy on the eye – all earth colours and lambent lighting – and the director (or at least his stunt coordinator) appears to have learnt from Ashutosh Gowariker’s missteps in Jodhaa-Akbar. The battle scenes are shot either in bird’s-eye sweeps or in quick-cut close-ups that hint at the savagery – there’s no ambitious attempt to capture the you-are-there-ness, which is, frankly, a relief. (If you can’t do it well, the way it should be done, it’s better not to do it at all.) There’s even the frequent dose of unintentional comedy, as when the colourfully clad Veer, after being ticked off by a martinet instructor about the need to adopt sober Western attire, offers a version on the GB Shaw quip about clothes not making the man (because it’s man who makes clothes). It’s priceless, really, this spirited defense of haberdashery from the star who single-handedly reduced the Hindi film hero to a shirtless pin-up.
Where Veer stumbles, apart from not knowing when to stop, is in its sluggish detours into romance. The Rajput crown-princess Yashodhara (played by newcomer Zarine Khan, of the marble skin and with expressions to match) is a prize Veer wins in a swayamwar, after surviving a bloody joust, and like a thousand Hindi film heroes before him, he adorns the parting of his bride’s hair with flecks of his own blood. That’s the kind of thrumming passion we want this couple to project, the sexual frisson of the touch-me-not Aishwarya Rai in Jodhaa-Akbar coupled to the laidback-Lothario advances from Veer. But their moments together are extraordinarily bland and boring, and inexplicably centered on a godforsaken brooch bequeathed by her mother. The one scene that leaps out of screen is when an enraged Yashodhara clamps her mouth on Veer’s wrist, leaving behind a circle of bite marks, which prompts Veer to remark that she’s presented him a watch, and that, henceforth, good times beckon.
Translated, of course, this is unadulterated tripe, but the line works beautifully in Hindi. That’s the other attraction for lovers of a certain kind of cinema from a certain age: a certain type of carefully calibrated dialogue. (The opening credits feature the rarest of sights, the name of the director in Hindi – as nirdeshak.) When was the last time you heard (the Britishers’) insidiously deceitful nature referred to as fitrati soch, or the irreversibility of the given word likened to an arrow that’s left the bow? (“Kaman se nikla teer aur zubaan se nikli baat kabhi vapas nahin aate.”) Gulzar embellishes this air of spoken grandiloquence with the sung – grafting, for instance, the auditory onto the ocular in Surili anhkiyon wale. He justifies this trademarked mixed metaphor by claiming, on behalf of the hero, that he’s heard that his lover’s eyes brim over with sleep, which, in turn, brims over with dreams. Forget Sajid-Wajid’s limp tunemaking, it’s the music in the words you carry home.
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So You *really* didn’t mind watching it.
Seems I am getting a better idea of your taste by every coming review..hehe!
Well, I appreciate the efforts to re-create the loud over-the-top 70s kinda melodramatic action saga (not to mention the too-heavy dialogue baazi) But It just didn’t engage me – neither the 1st half nor the 2nd.
I liked a few moments here and there, but on the whole – It was a boring flick.. trying hard to entertain you with its chest-thumping attitude. Not for me, perhaps.
I found Neena Gupta’s dancing in front of the Pindhari clan almost offensive
ahem , a first para about how you were trying for a first para and a couple of lines filched from an older review acting as filler ?
Hard to meet deadlines eh ? 
Like I said in my fb status updates from the film,
there’s no rebirth like veer rebirth.
mind it.
Mr. Rangan
I am curious, what did you think went wrong with JA’s battle scenes?
Except for reviews ; there is absolutely nothing to look for in a salman khan release. I started laughing the minute I realized that you have reviewed the film.
BTW, Credits la story and screenplay – Salman Khan nu varudha? Illa only story ya? Indha aala kelvi kekka yaarumey illaya..
fantastic salman
Vidhya: From my J-A review, “You get a glimpse of what’s in store when, early on, Gowariker unleashes the battle of Panipat. There’s no energy in this sequence, and it’s so laughably staged, it’s as if the extras leapt into position a half-second after the director yelled, “Action!” A later sequence that has Akbar taming a wild elephant is worse, with Hrithik dodging this way and that, trying his darnedest to convince us that the beast is a mortal danger – while the poor pachyderm just lumbers along, shaking its head as if puzzled by this man’s inexplicably enthusiastic exertions.”
udhav: “Story by Salman Khan,” according to credits.
A matured review from you, especially when many people have been humiliating Veer for the lacunae. Really liked the kind of tone and the explanation [the review is better than the movie, i'd say].
I still remember your comparison of the movie What’s your Rashee to a song from Paraya Dhan “Aaj unse pehli mulaqat hogi…” it was a very intelligent post too.
regards,
Nimesh
Veer – The curious case of Benjamin Unbutton.
In an ode to BR’s bravery on watching tripe like Veer :
- “Mard ko dard nahin hotha or Rangan ko sar dard nahin hotha”..
Hats off to you dear sir. Where did you watch it ? Hopefully the seating and the popcorn was good.
people like venkatesh et al,
Please do trust your reviewer(rangan) could actually like a film like veer without considering it tripe or such.
It is a stupid likable and context rich film full of lovable obliqueness combined with a crassness not seen since such sunny deol crassics like Love story of a spy and Gadar.
However it is a traditional southie historical film ,like a good old sivaji ganesan MGR historical , we need more of those. I for one miss adimaippen or mandirikumari…and if veer is all we got, i’ll take.
Ramesh: “However it is a traditional southie historical film…” Quite my opinion too. Even in Tamil, say, the hero-centric masala movies rarely look back at history (however “loosely” interpreted, which is why AO is interesting). The Tamil masala movies, of late, have gotten increasingly hi-tech, what with Ayan featuring an international smuggler, and Aadhavan with an assassin — it was nice to see something “low-tech” (and almost laughably simplistic) like this again.
Would I have liked a better-directed, shorter film with a more winsome heroine? Sure. But without all that, in your words, “if veer is all we got, i’ll take.”
Ramesh, BR : I am as much a fan of the “traditional southie historical film” as the next man – but this gents is not it.
Bring in on a “good” traditional southie historical film and i will be there.
AO is too obliquely about the past…and is really shaivite vampire jungle gothic mtv, haha
the plot is about the present, though..tamil cinema is afraid to talk about the past because it might fly back in through the chennai airport….
Can’t undewrstand how anyone can defend such brainles, tasteless tripe. Afterall we have had films like Mughgal-E-Azam, which have heroism ,romance and plenty of liberties. We have also had Jodhaa Akbar recently. And they don’t insult our intelligence or assault our senses. It’s quite strange that the audinces in general today have better taste and beter appreciation of films than the critics. That’s how we have a Jodhaa Akbar a hit and Veer a flop. And a Tare Zameen
Par or a 3 Idiot superhits and Sawaariya a superflop.
Baddy, so, can we now expect a separate article on IR on the event of the PB?
Shankar: I’m happy and all, but what’ll I write about dude? I mean, what angle? A career sum-up would be inappropriate at this point, as he’s still creating music. Also, it’s a delayed recognition, as in he’s past his prime. Let’s see…
What’s scarier, though, is the prospect that some mag will commission yet another Rahman piece on the PB. Nooooo
Baddy, if you don’t figure some angle out now, I fear the only article you might end up writing, heaven forbid, will be an obituary!! Now, that will be really too late…even you won’t be able to forgive yourself!
“..do anothe piece on Ahman”
I say take the money, do a “veeer” on them and run. And persuade your regular readers not to read it. But then, you probably have scruples
I have a better idea – do a piece on MSV
1. You haven’t done one before
2. If you want context, you can hang it on the “The one before them all…the man who didn’t get the awards” peg.
(As opposed to the ones that got it)
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Shankar: I did write a long piece about NK, where I pretty much covered the feeling of being an IR fan today. There was a genuine point to that article. With the PB, the point is also that much younger, much less accomplished/prolific folks like Aamir and Saif and others are in the list and somehow it’s not inspiring me enough to say, “Hey, he finally got himself a shiny trinket!” But I’ll think about it.
raj: Actually, for a while, that did seem like a great idea. But then, talking about *why* he didn’t get awards and such, I’ll have to get into “he wasn’t there at the right place at the right time” and then I’ll have to face the immense firepower of the Rahman contingent (in addition to the Raja contingent, because he too was more recognised). Podhumda sami!
You could do a piece on ARR next year 2011.He’s going to win an oscar next year for humming something under his breath while shopping in beverly hills.
I’ll waive the commission, if that halpes
)
Seriously, though, you arent bothered too much by the commenters, no? (I should know, right?
Besides, when it comes to writing about MSV and his music,
“ungaLa thAnE nambaNum vEra yAru irukkA?”
why podhumda saami – site hits will make up for all the verbal hits – wont it?
when are you going to come up with the AO review?
mohan: No review. Next Sunday, Between Reviews.
>>What’s scarier, though, is the prospect that some mag will commission yet another Rahman piece on the PB. Nooooo>>
>>Podhumada Sami!>>
Please accept my sympathies BR!
BR, I wanted to know your thoughts on Unnaipol Oruvan’s BO success. It has not been written about in detail anywhere. I think it is some sort of a milestone for Tamil audience’s evolution. It can be considered the first legit multiplex-movie which became a hit in a state that has very few multiplexes.I saw the movie and was surprised at how this could have been a hit. It had none of the usual ingredients that we are accustomed to seeing even in a “serious” Kamal movie(songs, Kamalisms), the protagonist is stationary throughout and then the final few scenes are quite low key. The movie ends with a quiet conversation. It could have been mistaken for a made-for-TV kind of film. How in the world did it become a hit?
The only thing that made me chuckle is that henceforth it will be Padmashri Saif Ali Khan…just like Padmashri Kamal Hassan!! Enna kodumai saar!!
On that note, now with Aamir getting the PB, some of the members of that club include Rajni, Chiranjeevi, Girish Karnad, Pran etc while Kamal has the lesser Padmashri…what gives? Strange indeed are the ways of the world!!
vijay: I thought I wrote about this: “Unnaippol Oruvan, on the other hand, has proved that it is possible to make an offbeat film that’s niche in its concerns and yet universal in its implications and acceptance (going by early box-office reports).” Well, perhaps not in detail.
I’d be cautious about allotting “hit” status to any film (as opposed to, say, “above average”). There is no reliable indicator of box office in Tamil cinema. Unlike with Bollywood, theatres do not release how many tickets were sold (which in turn translates to how much money was made), and we have to go by word-of-mouth, which again depends on the “camp” it’s coming from. But if it *is* a hit, I’m truly happy.
Rangan….speaking of music, have you had a chance to lend a ear towards Ishqiya or Striker; both are quite good. Amit Trivedi composes a couple in Stiker and Vishal Bhardwaj is totally on song in Ishqiya, one of the best in the past while. VB’s musical contributions are grossly overlooked for some reason!
@Shankar: “Padmashri Saif Ali Khan”
Delicious.
BR: Forget the MSV v IR v ARR fanboism , we really need a good intelligent piece on MSV.
Listening to songs of “Thamizh padam” the spoof film, whose advance booking apparently beats that of Goa’s. Parody aside, the songs are enjoyable and better than most of the “mass” songs it actually parodies. The serious melody “Oh maaha zeeya” whose lyrics is entirely constructed of gibberish words from previous hit songs is on one level fun but on another level works musically as well. BR, you should check this soundtrack out, just for fun. Will be a good changeover from Aromale