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Sholay (1975)

★★★★½ — Sholay (1975)

Ramesh Sippy had directed a handful of moderately successful Hindi features before this, but Sholay (the title translates roughly as "embers") was a different scale of ambition entirely. Shot largely in the rocky terrain of Ramanagara in Karnataka, which stood in for a sun-baked rural India, the production took around two and a half years to complete and was released in 70mm, a rare technical choice for Indian cinema at the time. The script, by the celebrated writing duo Salim-Javed (Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar), drew openly on the Western genre and on films like The Magnificent Seven, filtering those influences through the conventions of Bollywood masala. Amitabh Bachchan was still consolidating his star status at the point of filming, and Sholay became a landmark in cementing it. On a modest budget, the film returned more than ten times its cost and ran continuously in Mumbai's Minerva cinema for over five years.

Me and my best friend watched this with his parents. Initially... we were rolling on the floor laughing. It starts off insanely goofy and odd. Something I'm entirely not used to as a westerner. By the end... and its a long long movie... it's a beautiful and touching story of brotherhood and of two best friends. The "coin" gag has been replicated many times now. I'm by no means an expert but of the bollywood films I've seen this stands head and shoulders above.

Rating: ★★★★½ | Year: 1975 | Watched: 2025-04-13

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