From the clumsy plotting and a manipulative back-story featuring a visibly disinterested Kareena Kapoor, to the been-there-seen-that action scenes and the uninspired score, there’s little to recommend in this movie. At best, Akshay Kumar lays on the charm in a few well-timed sequences. But it’s too small a reward in exchange for sitting through this boring film.
Not surprisingly, your migraine’s back too!

I’ve said this several times, but I’m ready to implore again: can Bollywood please, please stop making these tired, tiresome remakes? And let sleeping Gabbars lie?

Even as an exploitative gimmick, it could have been used more cleverly, but here we have a full-length cinematic equivalent of Bali Brahmbhatt’s Gabbar Mix. Using the very name of the most fearsome villain in our cinema should mean something, but here it just gives the filmmakers an excuse to cast a dark-skinned actor as an executioner just so Akshay can tease him (even though he’s just an innocent fellow doing his job) with the “Tera kya hoga Kaaliya?” line. Ugh.

Stay away from theatres, I’d say. 50-kos away, even.

For me, the final straw was Gabbar’s last speech, in which he exhorts the youth to stand up against corruption and says that his mission was inspired by the teachings of Swami Vivekananda. It hit the sweet spot between outrageous and spectacularly dumb.

Gabbar Is Back is a full on ‘masala’ film with a lot of applause worthy scenes. The buck stops at Akshay Kumar.

Director Krish and superstar Akshay’s GIB is a hectic, loud film that skids from one episode to another introducing characters — all prefabricated, one-dimensional ones necessary for simulating a vigilante melodrama — and pushing the story to its inevitable end.

Akshay Kumar has put sincere efforts in every department be it intense or romantic scenes. But all the elements of screenplay, editing, and storyline put together doesn’t really help to drive the point back home. The climax of the film is a yawn and doesn’t move you at all.

Clearly, nobody put the makers of this film through the paces. They might have then known how to make the best of their limited cinematic resources and craft something less mucky.

Watch Gabbar Is Back only if you are a diehard Akshay Kumar fan.

With gritty reality, Gabbar has glamour too – Shruti charms with her soft, pretty appeal while a cameo by Kareena adds sheen but doesn’t divert. The second half’s blood pressure doesn’t fully match the first (Patil’s insistent ‘I am a brand!’ gets repetitive while CBI officer Pahwa looks clueless without Sadhuram’s ‘axellent’ work) – but the climax pushes up the adrenaline again.

…a dated film, both in look and feel, and the cast seems to know it too. They all ham it up like the Bollywood actors of the 1980s. Kumar is required to throw in a few punches, which he manages to do with aplomb, but other than that, doesn’t put in much effort.

This Gabbar is meant strictly for the masala-of-yore fans…

Watch it if you want to re-see Akshay Kumar’s superhuman antics, which he’s pretty much mastered by now – Rowdy Rathore, Boss, Khiladi 786, ad nauseam, ad infinitum. It’s almost as if that famous dialogue from Sholay’s Gabbar, “Ab tera kya hoga Kaaliya,’ is directed towards the audience. Gabbar Is Back, and is back in a severely logic-less form. Yet, the film is a one-time watch. Akshay Kumar fans will love it, yes. As for the others, take a well-thought out call.

If you enjoy films which have the good vs evil story with full on action and ‘Dhamakedaar’ dialogues, this is your film. For Akshay Kumar fans this one is a treat as the weekend watch. I found it entertaining in parts…

…an average entertainer which will draw huge footfalls over the weekend due to catchy massy title, action drama and the fact that it is releasing on a holiday. Post the weekend, the film will have to rely on ‘PWD’ (Performance on Week Days) to see it sail through. If you are sick and tired of corruption in India, then, you shall find GABBAR IS BACK inspiring, else you may find it boring and preachy.

There is no subtlety whatsoever in conveying the message everything is hammered and hammered hard. The background music is ear drum shattering and the dialogues are cringe worthy.

Not quite sure which was more embarrassing – Shurti Hassan’s character or her acting. Akshay Kumar tries his best to provide a silver lining but the cloud is as dark as a black hole.

‘Gabbar Is Back’ is not a complete waste of time, it is just a very problematic film.

In this story’s fifth rendition, filming gimmicks and juvenile humour upstage logical writing and character development. The end result is a lackluster and utterly pointless film trying too hard to impress.

The movie is entertaining, in the sense, that it touches on a very important topic of corruption and how the common man is taken for a ride. This one is even better than the much touted film on the common man, KHATTA MEETHA (2010).

The only saving grace of this film is Akshay Kumar, who not only looks dishy with a beard, but does try giving a convincing performance in this not at all convincing film. But then he should have chosen better.

Gabbar Is Back knocks the bottom off the action genre with a breathless ode to Swach Bharat. The film may appear louder-than-life to the dainty-hearted. But the tone is unapologetic massy.You can’t change the disintegrating social order by being subtle.

Miraculously Akshay Kumar does exactly that.

Akshay Kumar gives his all to ‘Gabbar is back’…Unfortunately Krish damages the reputation that ‘Sholay’ lend the legend.

Akshay Kumar remakes a Telegu version of a Tamil film and it’s a disaster. The only ray of light in this rumbling assault of stupidity is that the film is only two hours and ten minutes long, short enough to return home and assuage your grief by browsing Vijaykanth’s resplendent clips on YouTube.

The preachy overtones, the conscious sermonizing, silly antics, unbelievable action stunts, confounding logic in the sequence of events and Kumar’s staccato dialogue delivery don’t allow for much enjoyment here. Standard Stereotypes ,clichés, formulaic elements make it that much more difficult to make sense of. Director Krish and his editor manage to make it slick but the disjointedness and incoherence doesn’t stay hidden for long. Watch it only if you are a die-hard Akshay Kumar fan!

…is entertaining all the way. It will bring back the audiences to the cinemas and keep everyone smiling despite its high cost.

Whoever said “it’s the thought that matters” clearly didn’t have to sit through the 2+ hours of faux vigilantism that is Gabbar is Back. The idea behind it might’ve been right, but the treatment is all wrong.

This is a super hero film. Like all Bollywood super-star actioners are. The hero is expected to make a dozen men fly and eat dust with one stroke of his arm. That fauladi arm, as you know, belongs to Akki man. This means, as you might have also guessed: The presence of no one else matters on the screen.

The filmmaker Krish has tried to bring forth the point that how youth can do wonders if the energy is channelised on the right path. The way and mechanism through which Gabbar stings the corrupt officials, thereby creating a sense of terror among everyone is incredible to watch. The film never loses its momentum—with some power-packed punches and high jumps.

…is an action-packed film which has Akshay Kumar doing what he does best. Catch the movie to check out his all new action avatar and also to get an idea about how corruption is rotting various systems in our country, be it the government or the health industry.

…finds the ideal icon in Akshay Kumar to spearhead it’s on screen crusade against corruption. The super fit B-town Action Icon is stunning cutting a dashing figure with style, seriousness, populisms and the ‘cool’ quotient. Lovers of Akshay Kumar and Bollywood masala action khush hoga.. Shabaashi Dega…

This is a low-brow, gimmicky film that capitalizes on one of Hindi film’s most iconic villains, and more unforgivably, on the aam junta’s frustrations with the system.

Many a film have addressed corruption top to bottom and back to the top. This one hits a sweet spot by including malpractice in the private sector. Along with the bureaucrats, politicians, and law and order . Gabbar is Back takes on the misuse of power held by doctors and hospitals when a near one is unwell.

Other than this one plot point the rest of Gabbar Is Back is as run-of-the-mill as it gets.

This loud movie predictably offers kindergarten representations of Indian corruption, and even the execution is awful. Buildings that resemble Jenga towers collapse in a camera-trembling earthquake, while tired combat scenes show Kumar barely touching his opponents.

Don’t take your children to this film, lest they watch Sholay later and exclaim that Amjad Khan shamelessly apes the original Gabbar played by Akshay Kumar.

The only saving grace of this film is Akshay Kumar, who not only looks dishy with a beard, but does try giving a convincing performance in this not at all convincing film. But then he should have chosen better.

While the director and the actor’s hearts are in the right place, it would have served the viewers a lot better if they had paid more attention to the script. Gabbar is Back is strictly for Akshay Kumar fans who can tolerate his chest-thumping jingoism. He’s a rebel with a cause and he makes sure that no one forgets it for a second.

While Gabbar is Back is rife with theatrically orchestrated chaos and carnage, there is a brilliantly devised adduction sequence with hundreds of masked men that’s a real treat to watch. Despite the flaws and gimmicks, ‘Gabbar is Back’ simultaneously entertains and makes us think. Recommended!

Despite everything, the film survives to tell-a-tale that is relevant today. ‘Gabbar Is Back’ knocks the bottom off the action genre with a breathless ode to Swachh Bharat. The film may appear louder-than-life instead of larger-than-life but the tone is unapologetic massy. You can’t change the disintegrating social order by being delicate towards it. Akshay Kumar amazingly, through his bearded, brooding leadership, explains that.

In spite of being a remake movie, Gabbar Is Back is the best version ever made. Watch it for Akshay and watch it because it is an entertaining movie that will kick the boredom out of you like how Akshay kicks his villains.

There are more hits than misses that the film sees, however, if you are expecting it to break records like the iconic Hindi film villain ‘Gabbar’ did, think again. Go for this one for Akshay and the dialogues that he mouths, one of them being, ‘System bachchon ke diaper jaisa ho gaya hai…kahin se gila aur kahin se dheela’.