Greetings gentle readers and welcome to another installment of the Sunday Morning Movie. Today it’s a Bollywood classic, Sholay.
and next week’s movie A Child’s Garden and the Serious Sea (1991):
Reviews of Sholay:
IndieWire says:
“Sholay” premiered in 1975 to mixed reviews that bordered on total annihilation — one critic said it had everything except “intelligence, art, and purpose.” It was penned by the legendary writing duo Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, and of their two big films that year, it was “Deewaar,” not “Sholay,” which earned critical acclaim and instant classic status. But after a several days in theaters (despite an initial alarming drop off in ticket sales), “Sholay” spread like wildfire. The dialogue — so ubiquitous now that many can’t quickly source it — permeated conversation, R.D. Burman’s songs played all over, and a cinematic legacy was etched into history.
Letterboxd says:
The action in particular is clear and well done. A tense shoot out at a bridge is so well cut together with over the shoulder angles and reactions that it comes across as legible, which is hard to do when gunfights can feel disjointed by the jump between the gunshot and the hit. There are so many horse stunts as well! A couple look quite nasty in fact, with horse and rider taking a hard tumble. The choreography for the musical numbers is not as elaborate as later Bollywood extravaganzas can be, but fun and colourful for sure. There are not too many song breaks either, so the story can keep moving. The main element that doesn’t work for me is one of the romances. The relationship between Basanti and Veeru gets the most screentime, but it’s the less interesting and Veeru’s too pushy about it.
RogerEbert.com says:
“Sholay” is a grand, maximalist revel. It’s the kind of movie that, while it may pass into the
status of so many older movies more talked about than seen, it became that
thing by being great. There are many ways to achieve greatness, and the way of
“Sholay” is with heroism, villainy, redemption, revenge, true love, and as many
stars as there are in the sky. Happy 40th.
My take:
This movie is a lot of fun. It has humor, lots of adventure, and a decent amount of romance (but not too much). It’s splashy and colorful. That being said, the singing drives me batty and not in a good way. If it’s ubiquitous in Indian cinema I’m going to have a hard time getting into it. For me, the movie rates a *, I’m glad I saw it, but I don’t intend on returning.
Plot (Spoilers!):
Two-bit criminals Jai and Veeru have just gotten out of prison when they are offered a deal from a former police inspector. He will pay the two 20K rupees to capture a bandit named Gabbar Singh. With few prospects at hand, the two sign up for the job.
The duo arrives at the inspector’s home village Ramgarh where they meet two beautiful girls and the romancing starts. After driving off two of the bandit’s henchmen, the pair find themselves facing the bandit himself but manage to chase him off as well. The inspector failed to help them, and they consider abandoning the job,but learn that the bandit murdered the cop’s family and cut off his arms. The pair of crooks decide to stay on the case and at no pay due to their anger at these outrages.
After a series of misadventure in which the duo’s love interests are captured and freed, a grand shoot-out ensues. Veeru leaves at one point to get more ammunition and in his absence Jai is wounded. Jai fights on heroically and manages to kill the attacking gangmembers. Veeru returns in time to bid him farewell as he succumbs to his wound.
Enraged, Veeru attacks the bandit camp and kills almost everyone. The inspector arrives, wounds the bandit seriously, and intends to kill him. At the last second the police arrive and convince the vengeful man to leave the bandit alive. After Jai’s funeral, Veeru leaves the village and boards a train only to find his romantic interest awaiting him there.
Bonus:
Why Movies Just Don’t Feel “Real” Anymore
Why don’t movies feel “real” anymore? A deep dive into the first principles of movie immersion: on perceptual realism, indexicality, haptic visuality, and cinematic qualia.
And a second bonus:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmFsM_SMBdw
Thanks for the laugh!
I should have added the link to the related article, for those that may have missed it.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/12/president-putin-and-prime-minister-modi-share-a-future-strategy-thats-no-joke-for-president-trump.html
If one may be indulged a bit of BYOM (bring your own movie) and in the spirit of the season I downloaded this one from Youtube Christmas eve and it’s a wonderful movie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o9SskdQWzw
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bishop's_Wife
While the film’s context and plot premise are religious (I did say in the spirit of the season) it’s true theme is humanism and the old liberal spirit that we’ve discarded for go go materialism. Cary Grant has never been better and is perfectly cast.
It’s on the list, thanks!
Good job finding all these films semper loquitur and many thanks for doing so. I watched that “Why Movies Just Don’t Feel “Real” Anymore” video and found it very interesting. The screen capture for this video says it all where you have two characters in a humid jungle environment but the one on the right looks like she has just came out of makeup. It did make me wonder. When you watch a film there is the principal of ‘suspension of belief.’ A film may be showing you medieval England or a spaceship hanger but if the shots have been executed professionally, then you buy into what you are seeing and accept it. But if people and places in the background are out of focus when they don’t need to be or when the colours are in washed out browns and the like or the CGI shows people moving in ways that they are not able to then that is it. You are no longer in ‘suspension of belief’ territory but in ‘uncanny valley’ territory and you just don’t have that buy in. It is too distracting. An example – I recently saw an image of my niece. I don’t know if it was a filter on her phone or an AI app but her face looked flat and unreal making me call bs on that image. And it is the same way with too many modern films.
I think in drama class they called it suspension of disbelief–“two planks and a passion.”
But movies are a completely different medium than the theater although they often cross platform. And the greater resources of film encompass a canvas that can go in many different directions although that canvas is expensive which also makes film different from some other arts.
Personally–only personally–I think film’s highest expression takes place via actors. CGI isn’t real but human actors are. AI may simulate but that spark of life isn’t there.
And a cinema of people also doesn’t require million dollar sets or the cliched narratives to support them. Call it two closeups and a passion. Ingmar Bergman got this. His movies were all about closeups.
I saw an excellent recent DVD release called East of Wall that didn’t even use actors for the two principal leads but rather the two real people who were the source of the story.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_of_Wall
Of course movies can be about dreams if that’s what you are into. To some of us though the conscious is a lot more interesting than the subconscious.
I’m turned off by much of modern TV and cinema; it looks what I call “over produced”. Too slick and shiny, too many models and not enough real people. And don’t get me started on the displays of wealth, it seems that every TV show and movie has to have at least one millionaire in it, whether bad guy or good.
The “kelvin timeline” Star Trek movies starring Chris Pine as Kirk have a reputation (actuality) for blinding lights and strobes – ‘lens flare‘.
..and stand as an outrage against popular science fiction.
A vulcan constantly emoting, a frat boy starship captain,silly,poorly motivated time travelling aliens with megaweapons…I could go on forever.
relieved to read that it’s not just me hating on that jj abrams abortion of a star trek. that i wasted a couple hours watching the worst illogical macguffin-plagued crap still annoys …
Not so much jj abrams as Jar Jar Abrams.
It’s not just you, and it’s not “hating on”. JJ Trek is objectively bad. It’s enshitification on steroides. I was never a Trekkie, and have no problem with reimagining/rebooting/re-whatever. What I do hate is bad moviemaking, and I felt robbed after watching first JJ Star Trek abortion in the theater. In addition to my IQ being insulted, I even felt mildly physically unpleasant without understanding why (and only later figured out that it was the lens flare).
Yes I seem to recall that, I don’t watch Star Trek movies that often but the glare of the one Pine episode I watched was bad. Not to mention his obvious plastic surgery, apparently the Federation hasn’t improved on that in the 200 years that have passed…
There is another term for that ‘lens flare’ that you are talking about. It is the term ‘gimmick.’
the relationship between the lens flare and the suspension of disbelief is interesting … one would suppose the lens flare would undermine the immersion because it reminds the viewer that they is watching a film production … 2001 has lens flares but they never bothered me … the question is why are movie makers including lens flares when the wonderful things the audience sees are not captured with cameras but manufactured whole cloth inside the computer … maybe it’s because it subliminally suggests that there really is something out there that the movie makers have managed to capture …
We’ve hit peak lens flare. Here’s how it started. (2016)
https://www.vox.com/2016/3/28/11306906/lens-flare-history
Peak Lens Flare: Have We Reached It? (2018)
https://fstoppers.com/video/peak-lens-flare-have-we-reached-it-233455
have we?
about suspension of disbelief … there is an amusing scene in the Bond movie You Only Live Twice: the villains are in their base and suspending their disbelief while watching their monitor screen showing how their space vehicle grabs the US and Soviet manned space vehicles … without wondering who is there in the orbit with a camera about maybe 100 feet from the events displayed … it was in the 60s
Among his other talents Orson Welles had sometimes performed as a magician and that skill and movie making are not much different. Hollywood in particular has always employed a bag of illusionist tricks to keep the audience in the story where, as I say above, it’s really about the actors and what they are doing. They are the ones who sell the material and “make it real.”
May I recommend “The Legend of Bhagat Singh”, as I was, with my wife, duped into its production.
Neither of us made it into the final cut, but the producer’s agents stood by our agreement, and we had a brief glimpse of bollywood values.
It turned out to be a pretty good flick, but I find it hard to forget the others we met that had been shanghaied into the whole affair.
Please share your tale!
I’m not sure it’s much of a tale, but I’ll have a go.
We were back in the old part of bombay, the fort, whiling away our hours for the flight home, and a car pulled up beside us, must of have been around the gateway of india, tourist area.
The lady wound down the screen and asked if we wanted to appear in a movie production.
We, while delighted that our charisma had been appreciated, had to decline as our flight home was in ten (actually 24) hours.
No problem! the lady producer said.
1* But if you’ve been in India for more than a day, striking the original bargain is paramount.
I said, though I don’t normally get in cars with strangers, we’ll do it if we’re back here in ten hours and she agreed.
About a 2 hour drive we ended up in bollywood, very much at the business end.
After that we soon realised we had not been picked for our wonderful,personal, innate qualities.
We were roughy suited and booted as colnial vilians, my costume was ill fitted and smelled strongly of piss, my partner was rather kindlierly decked out in pure nylon fol-de-rol.
Then, the rubber met the road, sort of
We were pushed into the sound stage, everything was dark, but there others furiously painting and disappearing, tireless ,but with great effort, maintaining the iluson.
So there I am, ready to take direction, and everything stops because a demi-god who was working in the next door warehouse has wandered over for a chat.
The star of the film listens to another star (it was one of the kumars, but not akshay,who I remain a huge fan of).
As part of the lumpen, it was extraordinary to see two demigods in the same physical space bitching/lamenting and exchanging knowledge of their trade.
Not for one minute did they betray any awareness of the industry that supported them.
It seemed to be the end of the production (and I think it’s worth a watch), but seeing how they put together the final number, I cannot say I was not impressed.
So, halfway through, and then its starts getting strange.
There’s a break in production, so everyone has to go back to the changing rooms.
These rooms are windowless and as a security measure they are locked from outside.
There we met young innocent tourists (we were neither at this point) who had been incarcerated/indentured for a fortnight, naive extras grateful for the terrible rice they were given.
Apparently, they had no option to leave.
No amount of our intercessions could aid a particular young girls distress and wish to depart.
They had not been informed about point one above.
We all went out for the second shoot, and then after an unusually large amount of argybargy we were driven to a station in new bombay, where proceeded to the old fort area and counted our blessings.
Paid enough to cover our stay in the fort area though
For Rev Kev and other who understand cricket, I highly recommend Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India with Aamir Khan and Gracy Singh.
Granted, it’s a bit short at only 3 hr 44 min, but it’s a goody.
Chris England, who played the demon swiftie in the movie wrote a very entertaining book about the production, called Balham to Bollywood.
Overall, VERY highly recommended.
Special 26 is a good one, love akshay but his rebrand afterwards as a hindutva super agent was a bit offputting.