Wanted (2009)

(Wikipedia) – Radhe (Salman Khan) is a hard-core gangster . A sharp-shooter with a sharp brain, he works for Gani Bhai, the dreaded Mafioso, on his own terms. Totally fearless, Radhe singlehandedly eliminates Gani Bhai’s enemies, one by one – making more enemies in the process. The man is devoid of any principles; he is arrogant, ruthless and does not care about the emotions of other people.

Radhe’s astounded when young and pretty Jhanvi (Ayesha Takia) professes her affection for him. Jahnavi is a very simple innocent and a naive girl and she believes that everything is good in the world and nothing is bad. After she meets Radhe she realizes that all her previous notions were wrong and life after that becomes a roller coaster ride.

The introductory scene of Salman Khan’s character – aka the first fight scene – was nearly a straight lift of the fight scene from Deewar (1975) where Amitabh locks them in with him and gives them the key.

I’m not locked in here with you, you’re locked in here with me.

This film just kept on getting better and better. I may dislike Salman Khan and generally avoid anything he stars in, but DUDE, this was so fun! And OTT Vinod Khanna was AWESOME. I’ll admit to making fun of Ayesha Takia’s watermelon boob job, and Salman Khan’s weave. I couldn’t not make fun!

It’s a predictable run-of-the-mill trashy action flick with over-the-top dishoom-dishoom fight scenes, dramatic zoom-ins, cheesy dialogue, and characters with their own theme-songs that play generally whenever they enter a scene. But man, they’re always fun!

I mean, I love films like Hero (China), Zemlya (Soviet Union), and Gaav (Iran) – but I have so much fun with trash films like Billa (Tollywood), Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam (Turkey), and The Machine Girl (Japan).

The first song was surprisingly catchy. I had seen a couple teasers for it on the Eros channel on YouTube and it looked really lame. However, it was anything but. The song was fun and catchy, plus we had random appearances by Anil Kapoor, Govinda, and Prabhu Deva himself! I couldn’t actually find a complete version that featured Prabhu Deva dancing with Salman and Govinda, but THIS preview has all the best bits included.

Then we had a big Mughal-E-Azam reference for a while which had me in stitches.

A couple other songs were fun:

There were some more serious elements to it, what with the evil police officer who threatens to rape our damsel, and lots of gruesome killing (which was totally awesome, for the record).

Overall? It was entertaining. Would I watch it again? Perhaps if the mood was right.

Rating: 4/5

I ‘LOL’ed so hard near the end because of the lengths they went to get Salman to take off his shirt and show off his six pack.

It kind of reminded me of that fight scene from Bujjigadu…

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