Movie Review: Singham

In an action scene from SINGHAM, Bajirao Singham (Ajay Devgn) jumps and hits a baddie on his forehead with his palm. The guy spins, falls on the ground face first, bounces up a few feet in the air like a ball, and again falls on his back. With scenes like these, SINGHAM is so bad that it's almost good.

The Tamil SINGHAM starring Suriya was a huge hit down South. But the adaptation for the Hindi audience, despite have its share of masala, isn't up to the mark.

Bajirao Singham plays an honest cop from a small village named Shivgad on the Maharashtra-Goa border. Using his own principles, he makes sure that the village remains peaceful and free of any unscrupulous activities. He resolves petite quarrels and doesn't even mind lending his own money to a villager in need.

Things take a horrid turn when he meets a wily criminal and politician Jaykant Shikre (Prakash Raj), who is required to be present in Shivgad for a case. Through his political connections, Jaykant gets Singham transferred to his own backyard, Goa and tries to make his life a living hell. Can he silence the lion Singham and his roar?

Director Rohit Shetty has come up with an insipid film, which fails to deliver on all fronts. It starts as an action drama, takes a romantic interlude and again returns to maar-dhad. Not to mention Rohit's trademark GOLMAAL type humour in many occasions. At one point, when Singham and Jaykant verbally try to outdo each other in terms of the people they can arrange to fight for them, it seems like a fight between two local gangs.

There's hardly any movement in the first half in terms of the story, while the second half has countless unintentionally funny scenes. To be fair, Singham and Jaykant do have some ceete-maar dialogues. However, there are several puerile dialogues mouthed by the various characters on the top of their voices. The action sequences are good, but they get very repetitive and exhausting. You only have blown up cars (Rohit Shetty's favourite) and Singham beating the hell out of the gundas. It's marred by an atrociously slow pace, which is a complete no-no for an action film.

Dudley's cinematography is fine. Ajay and Atul Gogavale's music is totally uninspiring, with Saathiya being the only decent number. Steven H. Bernard's editing is tacky, with many continuity lapses.

Ajay Devgn, who is seen in a complete action film after a long time, looks really fit and acts wonderfully. But there's nothing much he can do beyond that to compensate for the weak script. Prakash Raj (a big name in South) looks promising initially, but his character loses steam and becomes like a joker as the film progresses. Perhaps his character is diluted to enhance Ajay Devgn's role. Kajal Aggarwal, who plays Singham's love interest Kavya, looks pretty. However, she does overact. Sonali Kulkarni is all right. The rest of the characters are strictly okay.

With a lot of noise (read loud) and no substance, SINGHAM brings no khushi and only gham.