filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

ajay-92672 Some call it the greatest Indian movie ever but i disagree this movie which deals with 2 small time thieves which are then hired by an ex cop who wants to take revenge by catching Gabbar that too alive i would say this is good movie overall not that great,probably one of the few old movies which i watched

melis-rik I completed the top 250 during the last couple of weeks, which meant that I had to see a lot of Indian movies. Though I did not become a fan of Bollywood cinema, there were a few good movies among them. Udaan is a very strong movie, and Sholay is also very enjoyable.Sholay borrows a lot from established movies, mainly westerns. The family murder scene was very similar to a scene in Once Upon a Time in the West. The action is technically not as good as Hollywood (the blood looks ridiculous), but it doesn't prevent me from enjoying the movie. It contains a few classic elements (like the coin with heads on both sides), that we've seen before, so it doesn't surprise anymore.The film makers changed to movie enough to Indian values and style, such that this wasn't an unnecessary remake of the classic westerns. I thought the two main characters were very likable, there war some plot twists I didn't see coming, and there were also some funny side characters (I liked the jailer a lot).

slazenger_7 Before adding my own review of this widely acknowledged iconic film of Hindi cinema, I went through several of the reviews of this film. Majority of the reviewers appear to have been born just before or just after this film was first released in August 1975. In other words, they didn't experience it firsthand at theaters and were probably already preconditioned with all the incredible hype surrounding this film. I remember its original release at Minerva Theater in Bombay very well. I have seen this film in both its endings: The one in which the Gabbar Singh character gets killed by Thakur and the alternative ending where Thakur just stops short of killing Hari "Gabbar" Singh at the behest of the police. Salim Khan (father of actor Salman Khan) and Javed Akhtar wrote one of the most memorable dialogues for a Hindi film character in Gabbar Singh. However, this film's key storyline is nothing but a rip off of several classic Westerns: Both from Sergio Leone and from John Sturges' remake of Akira Kurosawa's SEVEN SAMURAI. Gabbar's killing of Thakur's family is nothing but a rip off of Henry Fonda's "Frank" who kills off the McBain family (including McBain's little boy) in Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST. Amjad Khan (son of veteran Hindi film villain Jayant) owns this film. Without his interpretation of Gabbar Singh, this film would not be worth watching. With that being said, his interpretation of Gabbar is also a rip off of the great Italian actor Gian Maria Volonte's "Indio" from Leone's FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE. The base theme of SHOLAY is a Hindi reworking of SEVEN SAMURAI / THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. The vast majority of the Hindi film audience who praised SHOLAY to no end were not aware that its key points were plagiarized from the classic Italian and Hollywood Westerns. There were also some really silly scenes: Dharmendra's ridiculous mock "suicide"; the very annoying Basanti character of Hema Malini; etc. Aside from Gabbar Singh, the only interesting characters were that of Thakur (portrayed by Sanjeev Kumar) and Thakur's widowed daughter-in-law (portrayed by Jaya Bhaduri). Film director Ramesh Sippy ought to be ashamed of his plagiarism of the classic Westerns he ripped off and never openly credited. Aside from the key action scenes, SHOLAY really drags. SHOLAY is hardly a true "Hindi" film in the tradition of Golden Age classics of Hindi cinema which were truly Indian subjects (e.g., Roti-1942; Do Bigha Zamin; Pyaasa; Sahib, Bibi, aur Ghulam; Mughal-E-Azam; Pakeezah; etc.). SHOLAY is one of those movies which can be truly be labeled "Bollywood"...AKA when (way too often) Hindi cinema rips off Hollywood. Having seen SHOLAY in its 2nd week of release back in late August 1975 at Minerva Theater and a couple of times since, I can only state that SHOLAY is the most overrated Hindi film ever.

silvan-desouza When SHOLAY was started,little did people know it would be such a blockbuster,in fact the first month had so low attendance that it was about to removed from theatres but then things changed. The film may not have a really original story, in fact it seems the film was loosely styled after Akira Kurosawa's 1954 film Seven Samurai, and drew heavily from the conventions of Westerns, especially Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns such as Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), and John Sturges' film The Magnificent Seven (1960). Sholay was also influenced by the westerns of Sam Peckinpah, such as The Wild Bunch (1969) and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973); and by George Roy Hill's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). A scene depicting an attempted train robbery was inspired by a similar scene in North West Frontier (1959) and a scene showing the massacre of Thakur's family has been compared with the massacre of the McBain family in Once Upon a Time in the West, Some plot elements were borrowed from the Indian films Mera Gaon Mera Desh (1971) and Khote Sikkay (1973) Strangely it became such a cult film that many films were inspired from it, like Joshilay,China Gate and the recent disaster Elaan(2005). The film is very entertaining, Salim-Javed did a great job with the film. The first half is more on establishing characters, but there are several brilliant scenes like Amitabh and Dharam introduction when they stop robbers from looting a train, their scenes with Sanjeev Kumar,Dharam scenes with Hema, Gabbar's Introduction, The Interval point. The film is a bit lengthy though as in those days. The second half focuses more on Amitabh and Dharam seeking revenge and we also have comedy and romance and the last finale though prolonged is superb,Amitabh's death is simply superb, while Dharam fighting with Amjad and then Sanjeev fighting with Amjad is superb. In fact the end was changed after Censors rejected the end thinking it will affect people's minds seeing a cop killing a goon(In the original end it was supposed to have Sanjeev kill Amjad) and it was changed to the cops arriving, Even Sachin's death scene was cut off.Direction by Ramesh Sippy is too good Music by RD Burman is superb, be it YEH DOSTI sung by Kishore Kumar and Manna Dey which is the anthem of friendship songs, Holi Ke Din, Mehbooba all superb songs. The film is one of the 70mm films of Bollywood The recent 3D Version though gimmicky but was well done, especially considering making a 3D film of a 70s film. The film also was one of the first films to use stereo for recordingAmongst actors Sanjeev Kumar is simply terrific as Thakur, those days he was known as a comic actor more but this film silenced and surprised people,Though he was young he portrayed Thakur superbly Dharmendra is simply superb as Veeru, he is superb in comedy and dramatic scenes, in his inimitable style Amitabh Bachchan signed the film before Zanjeer hence he plays second fiddle but does a superb job as the silent Jai. Hema Malini is hilarious as Basanti and became famous Jaya Pradha plays the silent widower superbly though in one scene of her flashback she is shown full of life and is superb there too, just like her other films like MILI,GUDDI she displays her fun side in that scene superbly. Amjad Khan in his debut though he did small roles before is simply outstanding, evoking terror and hatred though his length of the role was small, People remember SHOLAY for Gabbar more then any character Satyen Kapoo,Macmohan are all good, In fact even minor characters like Viju Khote who played Kaalia were remembered, rest are good