14 years of Garv: Why this Salman Khan film is better than Wanted & Dabangg?

Garv: Pride and Honour, starring Salman Khan, Arbaaz Khan and Shilpa Shetty, completes 14 years today. The film saw Salman in the role of a police officer once again after Sohail Khan’s directorial debut, Auzaar in 1997. That was the time when the Salman Khan phenomena hadn’t kicked in. That was the time when Shah Rukh Khan ruled the roost. His name was enough to put the Houseful board outside the cinema halls. Poor Bhaijaan had to struggle to even get a decent opening.

Garv: Pride & Honour also met with the same fate. It opened to a tepid response at the ticket windows and was ultimately declared Below Average by the critics and the audiences. But here’s why it still remains a better film than Wanted and Dabangg. Firstly, it penetrated into the grim realities of a police officer’s life, particularly Arbaaz Khan’s character, who’s questioned by his own officers for his religion; his name was Inspector Hyder Ali. Secondly, it gave us a restrained, controlled Salman Khan, who was neither in his hyper-active mode the way he was in Wanted, where he played the role of an undercover cop who pretended to be a rowdy ruffian, nor was he indulging in crowd-pleasing dialoguebaazi and masala action that later went on to redefine and reconstruct his declining prowess. That was the time when we were bestowed with Salman Khan the actor who wanted to show he could perform and not the vanity-driven star that could only show how many abs he has even at the age of 52. That was the time when the shirt stayed on but the attitude dripped like sweat, with pride and honour.

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