Thugs Of Hindostan is a great opportunity lost and mainly due to it's director's laziness! It had extraordinary canvas to tell a nice story but director with his lazy writing was not interested in developing characters, plot, punch lines, dialogues. The only thing that he concentrated on was the visuals which in some parts worked and in other parts were average. Battle scenes were good but could have been definitely better if they would have been edited correctly.
Cinematography wasn't really what such a highly anticipated spectacle should require. Camera dwelled lazily without regard to the oomph that it was supposed to capture in those high action moments. Cinematography in many parts focused on not important parts leaving important portion in the frame out of focus. For action scenes which were truly nicely executed camera movements were shaky and non decisive.
Editing wasn't swift. Scenes looked unfinished. Scene progression in many parts wasn't smooth. But that can't be considered as the main culprit if director himself hasn't provided enough material to the editor to cut and paste. May be that was the best that was shot and he had to manage with those limited resources.
Music is tricky part in this movie. The songs are good but the choreography is highly flawed. Many lazy and weird steps being followed one after the other isn't what dance number requires. Audiences just look and wonder what exactly they are supposed to feel while listening to a nice song and watching dud choreography at the same time. It never does justice to the energy that these songs bring while you listen to them. No step follows what is being told in lyrics. Randomness and laziness of choreography takes the better of every song which if you listen without visuals won't find bad at all.
Background score is good but too repetitive which kills the fun. Character tunes pop up every time the character has entry on the screen. Instead of playing just character tunes it would have been better if the composer had played relevant background music that reciprocates with the situation.
Writing is outright bad. Whether dialogues or scenes, writer isn't interested in details. Writer writes as if it's the fisrt draft that is never revised, edited, improved. Leaving DHOKA SWABHAV HAI MERA, there is no other dialogue or scene that you will remember for it's writing. Characters are one dimensional and they never travel to other dimensions. They are exactly the same as you watch them at the start of the movie. When you have two legends who can pull off the most difficult of scenes but then you don't even give them opportunity to play their dual as... well, you just forgot to write it. When somebody listens that Amitabh and Aamir are in the movie one expects that there would be great scenes and we will see acting battle between legends. But tada... nothing like that happens as director didn't think of any such scene barring DHOKA SWABHAV HAI MERA which hardly last for a minute or so. And that scene too is overshadowed by action (which is good action indeed) but loses the chance to set the dual between acting legends.
Zafira's character gets the most of the biting because of the bad writing. Fatima Sana Shaikh who is highly talented and can emote any expression required by the character has nothing to express but the serious face that never smiles. Only one scene between her and Amitabh gives her opportunity to emote something which is not the serious face and she nails that part. Her action scenes are nice and you can see the hard work that she has put into it.
Katrina Kaif was supposed to have a limited role mainly restricted to dancing and being glamorous which is exactly what she is in the movie. Her role is too short. Even shorter than her role in Dhoom 3. She appears for few minutes then disappears only to reappear after a long gap for just a glimpse. But whatever expected of her she does it well.
The main antagonist, Clive is played really well and he does justice to whatever is expected of his character.
Khudabaksh is the ultimate moral compass that never faces any dilemmas, doubts. Always confident. There is only one thing that his face expresses and that is that he is intense. In some scenes he goes overboard but when you have director who is more interested in artificial drama than natural emotion you can understand why does that happen. He carries action scenes convincingly considering his age. But the way scenes are directed fails him. You don't feel the intensity of the action as it is supposed to be.
Cinematography wasn't really what such a highly anticipated spectacle should require. Camera dwelled lazily without regard to the oomph that it was supposed to capture in those high action moments. Cinematography in many parts focused on not important parts leaving important portion in the frame out of focus. For action scenes which were truly nicely executed camera movements were shaky and non decisive.
Editing wasn't swift. Scenes looked unfinished. Scene progression in many parts wasn't smooth. But that can't be considered as the main culprit if director himself hasn't provided enough material to the editor to cut and paste. May be that was the best that was shot and he had to manage with those limited resources.
Music is tricky part in this movie. The songs are good but the choreography is highly flawed. Many lazy and weird steps being followed one after the other isn't what dance number requires. Audiences just look and wonder what exactly they are supposed to feel while listening to a nice song and watching dud choreography at the same time. It never does justice to the energy that these songs bring while you listen to them. No step follows what is being told in lyrics. Randomness and laziness of choreography takes the better of every song which if you listen without visuals won't find bad at all.
Background score is good but too repetitive which kills the fun. Character tunes pop up every time the character has entry on the screen. Instead of playing just character tunes it would have been better if the composer had played relevant background music that reciprocates with the situation.
Writing is outright bad. Whether dialogues or scenes, writer isn't interested in details. Writer writes as if it's the fisrt draft that is never revised, edited, improved. Leaving DHOKA SWABHAV HAI MERA, there is no other dialogue or scene that you will remember for it's writing. Characters are one dimensional and they never travel to other dimensions. They are exactly the same as you watch them at the start of the movie. When you have two legends who can pull off the most difficult of scenes but then you don't even give them opportunity to play their dual as... well, you just forgot to write it. When somebody listens that Amitabh and Aamir are in the movie one expects that there would be great scenes and we will see acting battle between legends. But tada... nothing like that happens as director didn't think of any such scene barring DHOKA SWABHAV HAI MERA which hardly last for a minute or so. And that scene too is overshadowed by action (which is good action indeed) but loses the chance to set the dual between acting legends.
Zafira's character gets the most of the biting because of the bad writing. Fatima Sana Shaikh who is highly talented and can emote any expression required by the character has nothing to express but the serious face that never smiles. Only one scene between her and Amitabh gives her opportunity to emote something which is not the serious face and she nails that part. Her action scenes are nice and you can see the hard work that she has put into it.
Katrina Kaif was supposed to have a limited role mainly restricted to dancing and being glamorous which is exactly what she is in the movie. Her role is too short. Even shorter than her role in Dhoom 3. She appears for few minutes then disappears only to reappear after a long gap for just a glimpse. But whatever expected of her she does it well.
The main antagonist, Clive is played really well and he does justice to whatever is expected of his character.
Khudabaksh is the ultimate moral compass that never faces any dilemmas, doubts. Always confident. There is only one thing that his face expresses and that is that he is intense. In some scenes he goes overboard but when you have director who is more interested in artificial drama than natural emotion you can understand why does that happen. He carries action scenes convincingly considering his age. But the way scenes are directed fails him. You don't feel the intensity of the action as it is supposed to be.
Firangi is exactly opposite of Khudabaksh, the conman without any moral compass and Aamir plays it very well. He breathes life and brings laughs into the narration that otherwise seem to go in no direction. He owns Firangi and goes into his skin but writing is so weak that whenever laugh comes comes because he carries it with his acting power and not because it is written so as to produce laugher. He brings the screen alive when he is on the screen but that all ultimately goes into the waste as rest of the movie just goes by without having much of impact. It just ends and ends with the humor that even 5 year old won't laugh at. Firangi is the lone saviour who brings some entertainment to the movie which is otherwise insipid in it's whole length.
Costumes are the most convincing part of the movie. They look authentic. They look worn out as they are supposed to be for the relevant characters. You get the feel of the late 18th century era and there is nothing to complain about it in that regard.
This movie was promoted with the promise of grand spectacle, great visuals and when you watch the movie you can sense the hardwork that has been put into it to match that promise. Pre shoot preparation look quite neat and detailed but looks like all hell broke loose when they actually started shooting. Director definitely had some definite vision of what he wanted to showcase as grand spectacle and great visuals but he lacked the talent to materialise it on screen. If he had that talent he would have shot many scenes differently to get the greater impact. He would have added more to the story that would have made action more relevant and relatable. The only aim that director seems to have is to produce those spectacles but without proper story to weave it in a thread those spectacles have patchy impact. Some action scenes are really well executed but editing is somewhat messy. Some are not that well executed and some are outright childish. Repetitive background score doesn't help the cause either.
Now the most flawed department of the movie — the direction. The direction if done rightly can make a good movie out of average writing and bad direction can never save the average writing. Here both writer and director was the same person. He definitely has the ability to think big. But his talent is only about that. He is lazy to think beyond that. He had visions of big budget mainstream cinema but lacked the story telling power that holds that big budget mainstream cinema together. His Dhoom 3 was saved by brilliant double act by Aamir as rest of the movie was unbearable to watch. As for Thugs Of Hindostan, movie is never unbearable to watch but is doesn't have that wow factor that was brought to Dhoom 3 by Aamir's double role. Movie has right premises to build upon but writer, director was never interested in exploring the premise. He didn't think that what better can I do with the characters that I have? What can be done to the story that it doesn't become easily predictable? He just concentrated his all energy to make the grand spectacles which he had envisioned and in the process completely forgot that he had nice premise, nice characters and if he spent some energy in building these characters into something more than what they are now then he will have better story which will not be that cliché. If only he had given more and better dialogues to the talented actors movie would have been much better. He didn't spend his energy into writing the screenplay considering how few dialogues each and every character has! May be if he had handed over the idea to somebody who can write better then this movie with it's premise would have had potential to become great entertaining mainstream movie but that was not destined to happen. Considering Aamir OKed the script it's unbelievable how that's possible? May be, Aamir just wanted a break from his all thorough procedure of going into details and wanted to have great time with his character and didn't want to lose the chance to act along side Amit ji. May be? But what has happened has happened. It can't be undone. It's not the first time he worked in the movie with bad script. Mela too had a very average script. But he did mela for his brother. I don't understand why he did Thugs Of Hindostan?May be because he liked the character as he has said in an interview. Such a half cooked script was OKed by Aamir is still a matter of surprise for me. I am sure it's a minor glitch and Aamir will come come very strong the next time as he has done often in past. As a fan my love for him is as strong as ever and I am already excited to know what next is on board from him for his fans and audience.
What's positive : Performances, Action scenes, Costumes
What's negative : Almost everything else! Half baked story, underdeveloped characters! Bad writing! Bad Direction etc etc
RATINGS : 2/5*
