India’s first 70 mm curry Western Sholay ran for five consecutive years at Mumbai’s Minerva theatre. It has gone on to become an ineluctable part of the collective cinema consciousness of 1970s audiences and a must-see film experience for the generations thereafter.
What is particularly relevant is that this rather violent bone-cruncher not only shattered records but is also a lambent example of perceptive filmmaking.
On paper, this Salim-Javed story seems deceptively simple. A thakur-cum-policeman (Sanjeev Kumar) who takes pride in the fact that Shayad khatron se khelne ka shauk hai mujhe [Perhaps I like playing with danger], succeeds in nabbing a dreaded dacoit, Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan). Gabbar then cold-bloodedly massacres Thakur’s family and hacks off the Thakur’s arms. The Thakur now lives in Ramgarh, an isolated village within Gabbar’s circle of power, and hires the services of two petty thieves Veeru (Dharmendra) and Jai (Amitabh) to execute his retribution.
