Only Sajid Khan could have chosen to remake a film from the worst decade of Hindi cinema and take it a notch higher in terms of torture. After all, his bawdy and juvenile brand of humour does put the ’80s era to shame. So while we have the regressive undertones of Jeetendra and Sridevi starrer “Himmatwala” intact with dialogues like ‘Jis ghar mein ladki ki doli jaati hain, wahan se uski arthi hi nikalti hain’, the 21st century Himmatwala (Ajay Devgn) also spouts lines like ‘Meri ma behen ki kasam, main teri ma behen kar doonga’. Keeping up with the times, there is also an eerie gay scene between Paresh Rawal and Mahesh Manjrekar, where the former is biting the latter’s ear followed by the most pathetically tasteless sexual innuendo.

And there is no breather to recover. It indeed takes a ‘Sajid Khan Entertainer’ to spread horror in the name of laughter. Ravi (Devgn) returns to his village Ramnagar after 20 years to avenge the death of his father from the village’s villainous sarpanch (leader) Sher Singh (Manjrekar). And ends up taming an actual ‘Sher’ (tiger) in the process too, with just one solid punch on the tiger’s cheek. That’s perhaps the only considerable innovation (pun intended) by Sajid in an otherwise scene-to-scene and song-to-song remake of the original. The ’83s flick at least had its moments in the all time popular number ‘Naino Mein Sapna’ but Sajid’s version kills that too by making Ajay dance to the tunes. Ajay is no ‘jumping jack’ and Tamannaah is no Sridevi even though she shows a slight resemblance to the actress in a few scenes apart from the Southern connection. Having said that, Tamannaah is not a bad actress.

Just that she makes her Bollywood debut with the wrong film. As for Devgn, how we wish he takes a break from this inane fare and gets back to where his forte lies – sensible cinema. In addition, what can one say about veterans like Zareena Wahab and Paresh Rawal, who degrade themselves with their presence in this disaster of a film? Except for hoping we don’t see them in any of the Sajid Khan Entertainers in future. That the man has some serious notions about entertainment is known with his last two releases (“Housefull” and “Housefull 2”) but after “Himmatwala”, Sajid has proved he is delusional about himself too. Apparently, the ‘blockbuster’ filmmaker (as he likes to call himself) had claimed there would be no tickets available for the first three days of his film’s release.
Really Sajid, how about growing up a little?