Owing to the fact that I have watched the original (masterpiece?), my review would be less of an opinion and oscillating towards comparison.
۩ Salman Khan:: The Radhey (from Tere Naam) perhaps was the prerequisite for Salman to earn this role. And he justifies well given his constraints of his style and persona.
۩ Ayesha Takia:: The miss-goody-two-shoes seems to try too hard to appear coy and the penny drops at many places.
۩ Prateekha Lonkar:: Pity this "Iqbal" mother had barely any scenes in the movie.
۩ Manoj Pahwa:: Apt choice in comparison to the original version – but pity the track was edited out completely.
۩ Vinod Khanna:: Its appalling to see the quality and the size of the roles he is reduced to.
۩ Mahesh Manjrekar:: As usual he is reliable and effectively delivers the sleazy and gullible police officer with perfection. Wonder why the original Ashish Vidyarthi was not considered.
۩ Govind Namdeo:: Was adequate but as mentioned above why the the original Sayaji Shinde was considered.
In fact both above were spot on in their original roles and linguistic skills wasn't a constraint either.
۩ Prakash Raj:: He is the only one who reprises the same role in both versions. "Wanted" gives him ample scope to display his histrionics to Bollywood audience and who knows he might be the next Big Baddie in the offing!
The action are hard hitting and delivered with a punch. The good thing about Prabhudeva holding the directorial reigns is that he put special effort on Salman Khan's dancing skills. Sadly if the music could compliment equally – the results would have been set aflame the countdowns on the music video channels. On that note, what difference would it had made if the original director Puri Jagannath was asked to deliver goods instead?
Lastly, the original made a dent in the Telugu cinema and "Wanted" comes about 60% tops. Recommend to lay hands on the DVD of "Pokiri" with English subs at the first instance to discover sacrosanct can get lost in translation.
