You give them two hours of your life and they don’t bother to tell you why the film or the character is called Gabbar. “Kaam se hero, naam se villain,” is the only explanation early in the movie. 

That’s not how we remember the guy from Ramgarh responsible for the most memorable hand-job in movie history. Maybe this one just calls himself Gabbar. No wait, he also mouths his 40-year-old lines. And then there’s the climactic war cry: “Gabbar is the biggest brand!” Well, of course.

Someone with some money must have suddenly realised that Akshay Kumar’s voice in low octave resembles Amjad Khan’s vocal timbre. Reason enough for Gabbar to be back. That too in the remake of a 2002 Tamil film directed by Ghajini maker Murugadoss, who was bored enough to pass on the Hindi version.

So what’s Gabbar 2015 like? More like a modern-day Surya Sen. He is a professor in a college who takes his classes outside on the steps and teaches boys and girls how to fight. Then the sexist teacher picks only the boys to go and kidnap corrupt government officials, department by department, 10 at a time. Of which he kills only one, every Friday.
Anyway, after tehsildars and PWD officials and policemen start getting Gabbared, people eventually stop taking bribes. Not in the fear of any muffler man, but for the fear of their lives. But by intermission, you are told that this cleansing of the system is ultimately a personal vendetta story. 

Not because Aditya (Akshay Kumar with a moustache) had the smouldering Kareena Kapoor Khan opposite him and Gabbar (Akshay Kumar with a face full of hair) has to settle for the intolerable Google-quoting Shruti Haasan. Yes, that too. But because this evil, evil man called Patil (Telugu actor Suman Talwar), who is the corruption king of the state, was responsible for the death of his wife and unborn child.

Gabbar’s cleanliness drive is punctuated with scenes inside the police headquarters, where a bunch of clowns in uniform don’t allow samosa-delivering constable Sadhu (Sunil Grover) do a Byomkesh Bakshy on the case. It needs an angry CBI officer with a damaged English vocabulary (Jaideep Ahlawat) to spot the talent. But then once he picks up the 250-pound Patil and bounces him into the swimming pool, Gabbar decides to do a John Doe. First from the David Fincher film and then from the Frank Capra film.

What Rajkumar Hirani did with just a smile and a namaste in that one scene in Lage Raho Munna Bhai –– the old man stripping in the government office to collect his pension –– all these loud and over-the-top masala films struggle to do in their entire running time. Most characters turned into bad caricatures, large patches ridiculously boring and an unwatchable romantic track make Gabbar quite a toil in the theatre.

Akshay is solid, though. Not just in the jaw-dropping action scenes but also in the impassioned pitch he makes to the students at the end. All that facial hair suits him well and visually demarcates the film from his recent action flicks. But he seriously needs to do something in the casting of the women opposite him. Kajal Aggarwal in Special 26, Madhurima Tuli in Baby and now Shruti Haasan in Gabbar, the harakiri continues. Some of that money being spent on special appearances of Kareena Kapoor and Chitrangada Singh can go into this cause.

The irony is that the best lines of the film are the dialogues Salim-Javed penned for Gabbar Singh or the reworking of the same. Because the only original catchphrase of the new Gabbar is “I hate sorrys”! Even Pushpa can’t hold her tears to that.

 

 

Gabbar Is Back is/is not worth a watch because.... Tell t2@abp.in in 20 words or less