Nothing brave about ‘Veer’ - Movie Review
January 25, 2010
Starring Salman Khan, Zarine Khan, Mithun Chakraborty, Sohail Khan, Jackie Shroff
Veer is a period film that disregards history, a legend with an uninspiring hero, a costume drama with chintzy attire, and a romance with no passion.
Salman Khan plays Veer, a colonial-era ruffian, who belongs to a fierce tribe called the Pindaris. His father, Prithvi Singh (played by Mithun Chakraborty, who gives the only terrific performance in the film), is one of the leaders of the community. The Pindaris are betrayed by the king of Madhavgarh (Jackie Shroff), who’s in cahoots with the British, and the Pindaris want to oust both from their land. Prithvi sends Veer and his goofy younger brother, Punya (played by Salman’s real-life brother, Sohail Khan), to England to get an education and learn about their enemy from the inside. Once there, the proud warrior suddenly becomes an awkward adolescent, stripped of all mystery, with a schoolboy crush on his classmate, Yashodhara (Zarine Khan, in her Bollywood debut). The actress, who strikingly resembles Salman’s real-life girlfriend, Bollywood star Katrina Kaif, is as pretty as a porcelain doll—and just as stiff. There are no sparks between the two leads. Yashodhara turns out to be a princess—the daughter of Veer’s sworn enemy, the king of Madhavgarh. The action returns to India, and Veer is determined to win Yashodhara and fulfill his duty as a revenge-bent Pindari.
The story takes place in the late 1800s, but the filmmakers don’t correctly place it in that time period. Veer borrows from every Hollywood warrior epic in recent memory—Braveheart (1995), Gladiator (2000), Troy (2004), Alexander (2004), and Tristan & Isolde (2006)—blatantly lifting scenes and incorporating details from the various eras, from ancient Rome to medieval England.
The costuming is likewise schizophrenic. Veer’s traditional Pindari outfits are sharp but way too modern in style. The European clothes worn by the women only vaguely resemble Victorian fashion and appear to have been raided from a high school drama club’s cheap wardrobe. Little attempt is made at period hairstyles—the Western actresses even have unmistakably modern-day dos.
The non-Indian actors are distractingly bad—as is the case in so many Hindi films that feature Western characters. It’s a problem the industry needs to address as Bollywood movies are increasingly being set in the West and viewed by Western audiences.
Add CGI to the list of things wrong with this film. The excessive, unrealistic computer-generated imagery that mars so many Hollywood movies is unfortunately creeping into Bollywood, as evidenced by Veer. Hopefully, after this, Hindi filmmakers will resist the influx of gratuitous technology.
Finally, the film is topped off with such an absurd denouement that it makes the whole picture simply laughable.
Veer is rated Skip.
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