No less.
Bollywood movie Wanted has none of the charm that made its Tamil ancestor Pokiri a watchable movie for us when it debuted in January 2007.
Pokiri was tolerable for us because of South Indian hero Vijay’s decent efforts, some nice music and our desperation those days for a watchable Tamil movie
Alas, Wanted has nothing going for it even though it shares the same director (Prabhudeva) and villain (Prakash Raj) with Pokiri.
Same Story, Different Results
At 44, Salman Khan looks too old for this kind of young action hero role.
Worse, the aging, balding bachelor seems to put little effort into his performance these days going by the finished product.
Salman can’t dance. His acting is below par. The music in his recent movies is plain awful.
Bottomline, the fella would be doing everyone a favor if he’d only retire and count his paisa.
But the bloke refuses to do that and continues to hound the audience with one trashy movie after another.
Salman’s recent movies God Tussi Great Ho, Yuvvraaj and now Wanted are all bereft of even the most basic artistic elements.
Following the Pokiri story, Salman Khan is cast as a thug beating and killing rivals.
In Wanted, blood and gore are his constant companions. The stunt scenes are the crude nonsense that one is subjected to usually in Tamil movies.
It’s sad that Bollywood has succumbed to the drivel of one-man beating to pulp a dozen guys that it eschewed a while ago.
Sure, there’s a twist. But since we were aware of it, it did little for us.
Further, Vinod Khanna’s performance in the crucial encounter with Doni Gani (Prakash Raj) was hideously bad. Nasser and Prakash Raj handled the same confrontation far better in Pokiri.
Ayesha Takia plays our hero’s love interest.
Ayesha, like most of her Bollywood peers, wouldn’t be able to spell acting if her life depended on it.
Not surprisingly, the camera focuses on her ample bosom on more than one occasion. By the way, Ayesha’s bathycolpian figure put us off given her slim contours.
Pathetic Music
Not a single song in Wanted has any merit.
Just mediocre stuff. As for the picturization of the songs, let’s not even go on that dirty track.
Waste Not Your Money or Time
Overall,Wanted is a piece of trash, the kind that Salman Khan has specialized in delivering lately.
Folks, think not twice. If any movie deserves the heave-ho, it’s Wanted.
By all means, show it the middle finger and you’re the winner for it.
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Salman Khan Finished; Wanted, Another BO Disaster
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Wanted Review – Unwanted Trash added by SearchIndia.com on
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bathycolpian? I just went to dictionary.com and typed it in and no result came up. Are you coining new words for us? Please enlighten me and anyone else who is not so privileged as to know what this amazing term means.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write: bathycolpian? I just went to dictionary.com and typed it in and no result came up…..Please enlighten me and anyone else who is not so privileged as to know what this amazing term means
Bathycolpian is an interesting word, particularly in America given the augmentation obsession of a lot of women here.
The word has its origins in the Greek words bathys (deep) and kolpos (bosom or tits).
So a girl ‘blessed’ with large tits/bosom and a deep cleavage would be bathycolpian.
An apt description for Ayesha Takia. 😉
The telugu original is the best of all.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Yes, the Telugu version (2006) came before Tamil (2007).
But the director for the Telugu version was Puri Jagannath and the film featured Mahesh Babu in the lead role with Ileana as his lady love. Source: IMDB.
Pokiri was untolerable recycled junk from telugu, an overdose of masala and it is above avarage for SI enna kodumai sir ithu? The “twist ” in the story is tôo childish then what can we expect from wanted, whith the same story? It was not a good decision to watch Wanted.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write: It was not a good decision to watch Wanted
Very true. $$ down the drain.
There were all of six people for the matinee show of Wanted at a theatre in NJ.
I have watched Pokkiri in Telugu and in Tamil.
While both were decent, I found Mahesh Babu more convincing than Vijay, in matters of physique, intensity, and overall screen presence.
Also, Mahesh Babu belongs to the ‘understated, underplaying’ school of acting, while Vijay appears to be the opposite.
Moving on to another Mahesh, Mahesh Bhatt the director.
I was recently watching Mahesh Bhatt’s ‘Daddy’ on TV.
I couldnt complete it, but I remember having watched it long back.
Long before Mahesh Bhatt started making sleazy movies (Murder, and the likes), he made fine movies like Saaransh and Daddy. These two are very watchable movies.
You should watch them sometime.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. You write: I found Mahesh Babu more convincing than Vijay, in matters of physique, intensity, and overall screen presence.
Forget Mahesh Babu, Salman Khan is orders of magnitude worse than even Vijay.
2. Netflix has Saaransh but not Daddy.
We’ll watch Saaransh one of these days.
Besides featuring Anupam Kher, the movie has an interesting story line too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zvSWOHEky0
what would u say about this upcoming movie of ajay and salman
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Just watched the above trailer.
Seems interesting. We’ll know for sure on Oct 30 (release date).
As it has already been mentioned by Chaitu Telugu version is the original one by Puri Jagannath. The intensity carried throughout the original version can’t be compared with Tamil/Hindi versions.
By the way Tamil version is Poriki but not Pokiri.
The very day i heard Salman is hero of hindi version I am disappointed. Shahid kapoor would have been the best choice.
Age is very basic factor both producer/director overlooked. Get a DVD and watch Telugu version in home theatre. You’ll love it
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. You write: By the way Tamil version is Poriki but not Pokiri.
Are you being sarcastic? Because the Tamil movie IS called Pokiri NOT Poriki.
We can’t imagine Vijay starring in a movie titled Poriki.
2. You write: The very day i heard Salman is hero of hindi version I am disappointed. Shahid kapoor would have been the best choice.
Maybe. Shahid Kapoor is in any case a better actor compared to this Balding-Senior-Citizen-and-Can’t-Act-Star Salman Khan.
3. You write: Get a DVD and watch Telugu version in home theatre. You’ll love it
Let’s see if Netflix has a DVD with sub-titles.
Plz watch Telugu movie Arjun. You’ll laugh for days, atleast for the climax scenes…
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Netflix doesn’t have Mahesh Babu’s Arjun. They only carry Pokiri, Athadu and Akash.
Just watched the song Ra Ra Ra ne rajakumara na maya bazaara from Arjun for a few seconds on YouTube.
Hideous. Naturlich, must have been a super-duper 100-day hit!
Arjun was a flop.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Thanks.
Since that Ra Ra Ra song/dance was atrocious, we hypothesized that it may hit the 100-day mark.
I see here some people strongly recommending you to watch Pokiri in Telugu.
Well, I don’t know, Would you call something like Pokiri a movie?? Like all Puri Jagannath’s films it’s not actually a movie…I don’t even know what to call it… probably a patched up amalgam of the visuals, Jagannath’s demented mind gets a kick out of creating, most probably influenced by ‘Infernal Affairs’ or ‘The Departed’ (Mahesh Babu’s costume and his bitchy manners of a hoodlum throughout the movie reeks of Decaprio’s in The Departed). If you notice carefully Pokiri’s theme is an unrecognizably mutated version of that of The Departed (or Infernal Affairs) i.e a cop going under cover to play a ruffian on the streets (Mahesh Babu) and a debased cop hand in glove with the criminals (Ashish Vidyardhi, whose character was highly diluted so as to be subordinated to the protagonist in importance). Whether it is a copy or not, your only reason to watch it would only be to explore why such videos, pretending to be movies, as horrendous as Pokiri, could be mega hits only in India.
Puri Jagannath is actually a terrible fella roaming dangerously on the streets of Telugu filmdom spewing out movies, whose characters only know to spout I-am-what-I-am-don’t-f**k-with-me one liners (probably the a*****e’s idea of heroism personally) and whose themes are generally lifted from Hollywood or Hongkong to be distorted outrageously (he stole ‘A message in the Bottle’ and made Sivamani with Nagarjuna. Kostner’s role in the original was recklessly mangled to make it Nagarjuna’s braggart Sivamani). Jagannath’s copying is never overt like that of other directors because he reflexively tends to sew his own rabies-ridden notions of heroism into the stolen theme so as to serve up his hyper-contrived cocktails to the audience. No wonder he is a popular director here.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. Since we’ve never watched any of Puri Jagannath’s movies, hard to say anything.
2. We watched Departed but never got around to reviewing it.
Remember it to be a lovely movie.
Loved all four – Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg.
3. Have a surprise coming soon (no, it’s not Wolf Creek, which we’ll try to watch soon. Have the DVD with us).
araj, the elitist 😉 , has insulted many of us while insulting Puri.. I also saw the Gulti version first and thought it was better probably because I knew the twist. I thought Ileana was hotter (sometimes appears too thin), but Asin was livelier..
Was disappointed with Departed.. not as powerful as I expected it to be.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write: Ileana was hotter (sometimes appears too thin)
Ileana looks like an import from Ethiopia.
“Have a surprise coming soon……”
Waht??? are you gonna say ‘Happy birthday’??? 🙂
SearchIndia.com Responds:
No, we were planning on ‘Good Morning.’ 🙂
Seriously, we’re thinking of something else. Coming in the not-too-distant future…
Saw it today on a pirated DVD which I rented for $2.99. It was ridiculous just like the Tamil and telgu versions. Bad guys flying or rolling in the air after a punch isn’t my cup of tea.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Salman Khan Finished; Wanted, Another BO Disaster
sigh* when will salman stop sleepwalking through all his roles?? i mean…i seriously miss the salman of Maine pyaar kiya, andaaz apna apna and Hum aapke hain kaun….
talking abt pokiri…even i found the telugu version much more understated and subtle compared to the tamil version where vijay copied every single mannerism of Mahesh babu…Pokiri was never a GR8 masterpiece. It was aimed at the front benchers and the so called “masses” and it worked. All people want to see is hero worship, thugs flying around from the hero’s fatal blows, a glamed up heroine and some foot tapping numbers. Thats it! A superhit!
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write: Pokiri was never a GR8 masterpiece. It was aimed at the front benchers and the so called “masses” and it worked
Salman Khan Finished; Wanted, Another BO Disaster
Just desserts.
Oh, so you did write the review. Sorry, missed it. Btw, you did not mention the original Telugu Pokiri in your review 🙁
SearchIndia.com Responds:
We had not seen Telugu Pokiri, only the Tamil version.
Watched all three movies, Pokiri(Telugu and tamil) and Wanted.
Telugu Pokiri was the best of all. Mahesh Babu fit the role really well. Vijay’s ‘acting’ was a desperate attempt at imitating Mahesh Babu’s actions. But still the tamil version was good too.
But it’s definitely not the same with Wanted, as you so rightly pointed out.
Watching Wanted was like eating a bland meal.
So disappointing.
Not just Salman… All the actors in Wanted looked passionless. All of the memorable scenes in Pokiri looked so flat in Wanted. Pathetic.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
As we’ve said so often, Salman Khan is finito, history.
If the fella had any shame, he’d quit and spare us the torture.
Look at the box office numbers for Wanted, London Dreams, Main Aurr Mrs.Khanna Veer, et al. Pitiful, all.
The scenes in which 1 guy beats up a dozen villains can also be performed quite well,eg.the scenes in the transporter series where Jason statham beats a dozen goons up. The performance by jason statham is quite good,as it shows martial arts and excellent fighting technique,something which Wanted utterly lacks