When I heard that Apoorva Lakhia one of the bad filmmakers of Bollywood is remaking Zanjeer I was taken aback First of all there is nothing left to remake in that film, The plot has been done to death over the years, In fact Kurukshetra which released in 2000 too had a similar plot, Strangely in that film Mukesh Rishi played Pran's role while Sanju who plays Pran's role in this film played the lead. Let me come to the basics: Zanjeer was not a classic but was different when released though it's flashback plot was similar to Yaadon Ki Baraat released that year, yet the film was pathbreaking because the hero had no songs, he fought for justice.etc but today things have changed. Apoorva Lakhia has done lot changes though keeping some scenes, dialogues and also the narrative at times same, In that film Jaya's role was simple here it's played by Priyanka Chopra who comes from foreign to dance at a facebook friend's wedding....Yes right! Here the villain runs an Oil Mafia In that film, Pran's fight scene with Big B came earlier while here it's shown later but lacks the impact. The film starts well but stagnates soon, The scenes are hardly impactful, the Zanjeer reprised dialogue from the original looks pitifully duplicated. Some scenes are well handled like Vijay's clash with Prakash Raj but lack the same impact of the original. In fact the director seems relying on the original's stature to carry forward this film but sadly it falters even as a standalone film. In the original, we had Om Prakash tiping Big B, here his role is replaced by Atul Kulkarni A Journalist.The Mona scenes with Teja try too hard to be funny but end up being crude with sexual overtones
Direction by Apoorva Lakhia is nothing great Music is forgettable, The last song in credits is perhaps for audience to remember how great was the original.
Ram Charan tries very hard, he has a good presence, but gives a very ordinary performance, he is mostly seen frowning and hardly impactful Priyanka Chopra overdoes the role, Sanjay Dutt has a brief role and does his part well, though not as impactful as Pran, In the last scene his voice is dubbed perhaps it was added later-on and he didn't dub for it Amongst rest Aditya Lakhia, Dayashankar Pandey are okay, Prakash Raj is getting repetitive and does his role in the same style of his earlier films and lacks the impact required to carry off the role. Mahi Gill overdoes her role, Atul Kulkarni is wasted
