Spoilers herein.

An Indian friend of mine suggested I watch this film. He had a copy, but it didn't have subtitles so I rented it. I had heard of it before and was curious. I watched half Tues and half Wed and here is what I thought.

On my dvd rented from Netflix in the top left hand corner in semi-transparent lettering the word moserbaer was written. It was somewhat annoying, but for the most part it didn't bother me. The picture and sound quality were not that great, but I have endured worse so I didn't mind much.

From the tiny bit of the language I have picked up from friends and television even I could tell the subtitles were not that great and NONE of the songs were translated at all.

I have only watched one other bollywood film several years ago. I guess I was expecting all sorts singing and coordinated dancing out of nowhere, but I didn't mind the songs and they came in at what I considered appropriate times.
I only counted 5 songs in the 3 hours.

1. Veeru & Jai freedom song
2. Festival song
3. Helen belly dance song
4. Veeru loves Basanti
5. Basanti dance

All of the song parts were pretty good even though I couldn't understand what was being said for the most part.

Even though much of the film was predictable and sometimes silly I knew it was all in good fun. The drama and humor were equally well done and stayed separate right up to the end where I laughed as the Thakur fought Gabbar. I couldn't help it. It just seemed like black humor and I loved it.

All of the characterizations were great. I had my favorites though. I liked Veeru right off. He was a good natured and great fighter and fun as well. Basanti and the Imam were favorites too with their humorous interludes. And of course the intensity of the Thakur was awesome.

No need to go through the whole movie, but all in all it was really good and I'm glad I finally watched it.

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