• 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!

  • Shubhra Gupta
    Shubhra Gupta
    Indian Express

    3

    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?

  • Raja Sen
    Raja Sen
    Rediff

    3

    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.

  • Anupama Chopra
    Anupama Chopra
    Hindustan Times

    2

    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.

  • Suparna Sharma
    Suparna Sharma
    Deccan Chronicle

    3

    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.

  • Mehul S Thakkar
    Mehul S Thakkar
    Deccan Chronicle

    4

    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.

  • Sarita Tanwar
    Sarita Tanwar
    DNA India

    5

    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.

  • Sachin Chatte
    Sachin Chatte
    The Navhind Times

    3

    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.

  • 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.

  • Johnson Thomas
    Johnson Thomas
    The Free Press Journal

    4

    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!

  • Piyush Chopra
    Piyush Chopra
    NowRunning

    4

    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.

  • 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.

  • Rahul Desai
    Rahul Desai
    Mumbai Mirror

    3

    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.

  • 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.

  • 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’.