The heroes are Veeru (Dharmendra) and Jai (Amitabh Bachchan), a pair of crooks with hearts of gold, who are recruited by a retired policeman who once arrested them, Baldev Singh (Sanjeev Kumar), to capture a wanted outlaw, Gabbar (Amjad Khan), who’s terrorising Singh’s village, and who he has a personal history with. And you can see why it struggles to transcend the culture it originates from, because when Western movies ever even vaguely attempt this kind of range of tones, there are trolls aplenty waiting to rip them apart for the perceived fault of being tonally inconsistent. You can see why it became such a success: there’s something for everyone. Thanks to engaging characters and relationships, powerful and humorous performances, quality filmmaking (there’s some strikingly effective camerawork and editing in the big scenes), it all flows.
That sounds like a recipe for disaster, but what’s perhaps most remarkable about Sholay is that it pulls them off.
SHOLAY 1975 MOVIE FULL ENGLISH SUBTITLES PLUS
Masala is, of course, a mix of spices in Indian cuisine, and the films that take that name blend genres together, typically ( according to Wikipedia) action, comedy, romance, and melodrama, plus musical numbers. Apparently it’s a defining example of the “masala film”. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say its primary genre was Action, or Comedy, or Musical, or Western - it’s all of those things, by turn sometimes at the same time. There are whole sequences (not just fleeting moments) of broad slapstick humour, epic action, heartfelt romance, brutal violence, colourful musical numbers, intense tragedy, plus backstory that’s filled in via regular, lengthy flashbacks. It’s a tricky film to sum up, because it offers a massive mash-up of tones and genres in a way we’re not accustomed to from Western cinema. All of which is why I chose it to be my second-ever #200. I first heard about it years ago in that context, and my desire to see it was only exacerbated when it made it onto IMDb’s list.
From a British perspective, in 2002 it topped the BFI’s “top ten Indian films of all time” poll, and in 2004 it was voted the “Greatest Indian Movie” in a Sky poll of 1 million British Indians. Instead, it’s enjoyed remarkable success of its own: it topped the Indian box office for 19 years, was the first film in India to celebrate a Silver Jubilee at over 100 cinemas, and eventually set a record of 60 Golden Jubilees across India. But in Indian culture it’s a much bigger deal, a huge and longstanding success like Star Wars or something is to us, I guess, only without the reams of sequels and spinoffs and merchandise and theme parks. For many Western readers (and the stats say most of mine are, though India is in 3rd of all countries for 2019 so far), there’s every chance you’ll’ve only heard of Sholay (if you’ve heard of it at all) as “one of those Indian films that’s on the IMDb Top 250 nowadays”.
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