Shane Azam Rony

Personal Review: 5/10 Action, adventure and fantasy is a genre that you’re associate with Hollywood’s big-budget movies. So, to watch India’s answer to films like 'Pirates of The Caribbean', at the beginning seemed like a different experience. While 'Thugs of Hindostan' has the aspirations to be a big-budget entertainer, it can’t quite match the same thrills of a Johnny Depp adventurer. In all fairness, despite the dull writing, the film does manage to look and feel like a top-grade adventure film. It certainly looks like a million bucks, sadly it doesn’t match the same way. The story begins in the late 1700s, where a conspiratorial British officer named Clive betrays the honest king Mirza and dupes him off his family, life and kingdom. The young princess Zafira is the only one who escapes, along with the king's trusted guard Khudabaksh, and many years later they form a gang of pirates who are also goodfellas. Their only mission is to get their kingdom free from Clive and his company rule. 'Thugs of Hindostan' is based during the East India Company’s rule in India, when the British used their trading position to control India’s princely states. But the fact that the heroes of this tale are pirates, doesn’t quite fit into the Indian context, given that Indians never gained unsavory reputation as pirates. The Maratha navy under leaders like Kanhoji Angre did gain robber status during the 1700s, but 'Thugs of Hindostan' doesn’t look like it’s based out of seaside regions of the country. Historical wrongness aside, 'Thugs of Hindostan' is an adventure movie and you need filmic liberty to setup an adventurous story. While the production design by Sumit Basu and cinematography by Manush Nandan are excellent, the predictable nature of the writing by director Vijay Krishna Acharya doesn’t help the movie at all. You can guess every plot development and the fact that the movie doesn’t throw up a single twist, just rocks the boat. The dull screenplay features scenes that are too long and over dramatic, that’s why the movie feels like it's always on uneven waters. Another unsatisfactory aspect of the movie is the music by Ajay-Atul, that doesn't go with the story. While the individual performances by Aamir Khan and Amitabh Bachchan are notable, the rest of the cast just never comes together. Aamir excels in the physical comedy and joking, while Mr Bachchan pulls-off the heroics and the powerful dialogues well, but the rest of the cast isn't able to meeting up any serious effort. Katrina Kaif is limited to two songs and a few lines of dialogue, while Fatima Sana Shaikh is left at the pity of some badly composed action sequences. Apart from the stray funny moments and consistently average visuals, 'Thugs of Hindostan' doesn’t certainly have the punch or the thrill that is required to pull off a film of this scale. At 2 hours and 45 minutes, the film feels a little too long and that’s down to the awkward editing. The grand canvas of the film does hold influence in terms of the visual experience, but at the end, this one is all show and no substance. With the immense expectations attached to this movie, the end experience just leaves you all at sea.