**Some spoilers ahead**
Sholay was not what I was expecting. Somehow the posters or some imagery that I'd seen had led me to expect a film that was about grand politics, perhaps vast armies fighting in the desert.. Instead, and this is all I have to compare it to, some kind of western?
I enjoyed the plot twists. I wasn't expecting the various deaths in the film, especially towards the end. The songs were all pretty good. One felt almost modern somehow.
Some scenes I felt went on quite a bit longer than they needed, particularly early on. I am told that the action scenes were praised at the time, though they too felt a little too long for my tastes.
All in all, some strong character portraits, and I feel some precedents set for future films. I half wonder if there's a sequel where Gabbar escapes from the surely-minimum-security prison to which he gets sent.