Salman Khan’s Dabangg, which took the Bollywood box office by storm a while back, has been remade as ‘Osthe’ in Tamil with the help of a Kollywood director, Dharani, who has got a couple of mass masala hits under his belt and the ever enterprising ‘Simbhu’ donning the role of ‘Osthe Velan‘, the robin-hood like cop role that was made memorable by Salman in the Hindi version.

Story was as simple as ‘Jack and Jill, went up the hill…’ without any logic and some major flaws which was enough to pull the movie back.

A major blunder could have been avoided by not casting Sonu Sood as the antagonist in Tamil, who played the same role in the Hindi version too. The tall hunk he is, Sonu just dwarfed Simbhu physically during the confrontation scenes.

Although we have tolerated Simbhu beating a bunch of henchmen onscreen and donning the role of a mass masala hero in the past, this was the first time he donned the role of a cop and tried hard to fit in the skin of the role, but failed to impress. Though his attitude and body language got going, his physique let him down and we were reminded of a college kid wearing a cop uniform for the fancy dress competition. Especially during the climax where he was supposed to reveal his hardly built 6 packs, he got himself unconsciously pitched against Sonu Sood’s natural brawn and gets thoroughly spoofed in the process. Tough luck Simbhu!

Richa, had a cardboard look throughout the movie and a ‘Mayakkam Enna’ hangover and hardly managed to smile even during the song sequences. She looked much elder to Simbhu.

One of the major saving graces was Santhanam’s buffoonery and one-liners which made room for some genuine fun and laughter, even though crude at times.

‘Jithan’ Ramesh, Nasser and Revathi were there to add some melodrama at various stages during the mindless proceedings. For ‘Jithan’ Ramesh, considering his previous records, this is by far a role where he has tried to act.

Others in the cast like Vijayakumar, Vaiyapuri, Mayilsami and Thambi Ramaiah were lost in a wink and were used merely for heaping praises on ‘Osthe Velan’. Among the second string of actors, Ganesh as Richa’s drunkard father had delivered a decent performance.

Music by Thaman was a highlight. The numbers ‘Unnale’ and ‘Neduvali’ were hummable, while ‘Kalasala’ which was the ‘Munni’ equivalent in Tamil would be the favourite among the front benchers.

Osthe is for the ones who can appreciate Dhoni’s unconventional ‘helicopter shot’ and Dravid’s technically perfect ‘on-drive’ on par, though both might yield different results at different point in time.