Review of Garv: Pride and Honour

Back in those days, Salman Khan was a highly popular star, and to his credit he had hardly been part of those big-budget films made by Chopra, Ghai and the likes. Khan is a good entertainer, and a great strength of his is that he never seemed to consider himself a particularly good actor, neither did he really pretend to take the acting part of acting too close to heart. It was all about a good presence and a likably honest persona. In this film he actually does seem to try to show the opposite, but sadly he never manages to turn it into something particularly special since the film is not very good in the first place. Khan apparently just doesn't have the right flair for choosing the right movies. This is the same age old story of pride and honour, love and sacrifice, principles and values, rape and revenge, and they hardly ever ring true. They could have, had they been tackled by a more competent and imaginative writer or director. But the result is a stale, highly outdated film which doesn't work in spite of Khan's presence. The story lacks any possible depth and conviction. Then we have the usual heroine, played by Shilpa Shetty, whose appearance is basically restricted to the lavish songs. Speaking of songs, there's a nice number called "Hum Tumko Nigahon Mein". The action scenes are not that bad, relatively speaking, but they are typically exaggerated and all stretched out, just like the film itself.