Recensioni degli utenti

Before adding my own review of this widely acknowledged iconic film of Hindi cinema, I went through several of the reviews of this film. Majority of the reviewers appear to have been born just before or just after this film was first released in August 1975. In other words, they didn't experience it firsthand at theaters and were probably already preconditioned with all the incredible hype surrounding this film. I remember its original release at Minerva Theater in Bombay very well. I have seen this film in both its endings: The one in which the Gabbar Singh character gets killed by Thakur and the alternative ending where Thakur just stops short of killing Hari "Gabbar" Singh at the behest of the police. Salim Khan (father of actor Salman Khan) and Javed Akhtar wrote one of the most memorable dialogues for a Hindi film character in Gabbar Singh. However, this film's key storyline is nothing but a rip off of several classic Westerns: Both from Sergio Leone and from John Sturges' remake of Akira Kurosawa's SEVEN SAMURAI. Gabbar's killing of Thakur's family is nothing but a rip off of Henry Fonda's "Frank" who kills off the McBain family (including McBain's little boy) in Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST. Amjad Khan (son of veteran Hindi film villain Jayant) owns this film. Without his interpretation of Gabbar Singh, this film would not be worth watching. With that being said, his interpretation of Gabbar is also a rip off of the great Italian actor Gian Maria Volonte's "Indio" from Leone's FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE. The base theme of SHOLAY is a Hindi reworking of SEVEN SAMURAI / THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. The vast majority of the Hindi film audience who praised SHOLAY to no end were not aware that its key points were plagiarized from the classic Italian and Hollywood Westerns. There were also some really silly scenes: Dharmendra's ridiculous mock "suicide"; the very annoying Basanti character of Hema Malini; etc. Aside from Gabbar Singh, the only interesting characters were that of Thakur (portrayed by Sanjeev Kumar) and Thakur's widowed daughter-in-law (portrayed by Jaya Bhaduri). Film director Ramesh Sippy ought to be ashamed of his plagiarism of the classic Westerns he ripped off and never openly credited. Aside from the key action scenes, SHOLAY really drags. SHOLAY is hardly a true "Hindi" film in the tradition of Golden Age classics of Hindi cinema which were truly Indian subjects (e.g., Roti-1942; Do Bigha Zamin; Pyaasa; Sahib, Bibi, aur Ghulam; Mughal-E-Azam; Pakeezah; etc.). SHOLAY is one of those movies which can be truly be labeled "Bollywood"...AKA when (way too often) Hindi cinema rips off Hollywood. Having seen SHOLAY in its 2nd week of release back in late August 1975 at Minerva Theater and a couple of times since, I can only state that SHOLAY is the most overrated Hindi film ever.

I've only seen a few Hindi films so far, mostly from the 1990s-2000s. The most common factor I've seen in those movies is directing, cinematography, and screenplay that are all 30+ years behind the times compared with cinema from any other nation.

Sholay is not one of those films. This 1970s curry western has all of the elements I would expect to see from a Hollywood 70s action flick. It has the good, as in respectable cinematography, mostly interesting dialogue, entertaining action, and the occasional laugh. It also has the bad, which includes occasional over-the-top humor, a few action sequences that too obviously staged, and blood brighter than any Holi orange.

The concept of this movie is good enough to make me wonder, "What went wrong with Hindi cinema in between Sholay and the 1990s?" However, there are a few more poor aspects that brought my rating even lower. This movie has the typical Bollywood song scenes that add nothing to the film except to break your immersion. The female lead was entirely unlikable. One fight was so ridiculously faked that it completely killed the tension in the scene. Worst of all, the film was about an hour longer than it needed to be. Two separate love stories made the scenes in between the action feel very dragged out. This is a 3:15 movie, but it easily could have been 2:15 if they cut one love story and all the songs.

My father and I anxiously popped in this DVD that was suggested by a friend. After reading many reviews and seeing the high rating on IMDb I thought we were in for a real treat. What a load of garbage this movie turned out to be. A combination of all the wrong ingredients for a epic western. Growing up on Rio Bravo, Bite the Bullet and The Professionals I couldn't wait for Sholay to end. Sholay is three hours of total misunderstanding of Western movie culture. My view of Bollywood movies has been tainted for quite a while with this movie. John Wayne would be rolling over in his grave if he saw two-cowboys in leisure suits, with poor comic relief. I will describe one seen from the movie. The two wanted heroes get caught and are serving jail time. The new warden at the jail is a poor representation of Charlie Chaplin playing Hitler. That was one of the few highlights... In conclusion this is a horrible movie that tries to mesh musicals, comedy, and drama from Western culture into a Bollywood hit. It might have worked for Bollywood, but any fan of Hollywood westerns would be smart to steer clear of this crap.

I remember buying the DVD for this cult classic,but I was hugely disappointed. The movie is marred by overacting,over the top scenes. I guess such loud acting was the norm back in the day but personally I wasn't impressed at all given the mountain of expectations this movie comes with. This is your typical Bollywood "masterpiece", don't expect good cinema,that's all.

Lets pause for a moment and talk about the East Indian Movie. I know about these things, and people have been talking about Sholay! like it was the best thing since sliced bread, and well, I would have preferred the sliced bread.

Your typical East Indian move generally has all the plot under the sun, musical numbers aplenty and acting that is extremely laughable. Sholay! does this all about threefold. Yess, for 3 numbing hours, we see the tale of 2 lifelong friends trying to save one hick town from the evil guy (who admittedly, was very good) and while we arent getting flashback after flashback, get entertained by really wild Indian songs. The Colorful day number was cool, but really, this was 3 really long hours!!!!