Vijay Krishna Acharya's 2018 flick 'Thugs of Hindostan' could easily remind us one of Mr. A and Sunheri from his 2006 flick Dhoom 2.
Mr. A is a big burglar whose whereabouts are unknown to anyone. In order to track him and put him behind the bars, Jai Dixit assigns Sunheri. But things take a turn and Sunheri falls for Mr A who too falls for her. The duo settles down opening a restaurant somewhere in New Zealand and leads a happy married life.
Now, coming back to the most expensive Bollywood film till date- Thugs of Hindostan. Khudabaksh is a thug, in fact the leader of thugs in India. The Britishers are hardly able to trace him. British chief Clive assigns Firangi for the mission. But Firangi who manages to hunt him down, finally chooses to be a 'good' man and settles down with 'the girl of his standard'.
However, unlike the title, the film is not about thugs, rather it's the revenge story of heiress Zafira of the kingdom of Raunakpur. Zafira is protected by Khudabaksh against Englishmen and how she battles all odds in life is the movie all about.
Although the movie opens well with a neat story telling, it takes a cliched route with a few hilarious twists and turns. Sadly one has to wait for about 164 minutes to watch the predictable climax and figure out how the English company takes the defeat.
Although before the movie released, there were hype surrounding the movie to be Indian version of Pirates of Caribbean but Thugs of Hindostan barely matches the level of stunts and visual effects of the 'Pirates...' film. If the film is a reminiscent of 'Pirates of the Caribbean', courtesy to Aamir Khan's Firangi appearance (inspired by Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow) and various shots of pirate ships. The Indian Jack Sparrow too was equally mischievous and cunning and humorous.
There were some well framed action sequences but those were let down by the CGI and VFX. The direction seems shoddy, especially, in the scenes which had two of the greatest heroes of Bollywood sharing the screen space together.
Another big letdown were the songs and Katrina Kaif! The actress joined the cast just to shake a leg for two of it's unremarkable songs. Fatima Sana Shaikh who had enthralled one and all in her debut movie Dangal, failed to leave a lasting impression. But yes, she was good in actions than dialogues.
Talking about Aamir Khan and Amitabh Bachchan we feel pity for the duo who signed a movie with the usual formula-ridden plot. All the same, Aamir and Bachchan were the only relief in the movie.
Writer-director Vijay Krishna Acharya definitely had a good take on freedom and conveys that freedom come from trust but death and treason are inevitable factors in life. Even then, 'Thugs of Hindostan' fails to achieve the standard of epic period drama and can otherwise be termed as watchable masala entertainer.
