Sam Bahadur movie review: Facile, forgettable vignette reel powered by Vicky – Hindustan Times

Sam Bahadur has a lot going for it. For director Meghna Gulzar, it comes on the again of two glowing successes in Talvar (2015) and Raazi (2018). It stars Vicky Kaushal, who isn’t any stranger to enjoying males on a mission in opposition to the nation’s adversaries, having completed it for each fictitious and real-life figures in Uri: The Surgical Strike (2019) and Sardar Udham (2021). Lastly, it’s concerning the lifetime of one of many nation’s most storied troopers, Subject Marshal Sam Manekshaw, a near-mythical colossus who lived after being shot 9 occasions by a Japanese soldier in WWII. Additionally learn: Sam Bahadur first reactions, Abhishek Bachchan applauds Vicky Kaushal

Twisting and fidgeting in your seat for the longest time, you await that decisive second of cinematic brilliance. You smile arduous when author Bhavani Iyer and director Meghna Gulzar attempt to make you chortle. And but, on the finish of all of it, the purpose of Sam Bahadur eludes you fully. I got here out of the film corridor feeling like I had simply been administered a contemporary retelling of the annual on-line listicle you learn on Manekshaw — famend feeder of humble pie even to the nation’s then Prime Minister, proud proprietor of the fuzzy handlebar moustache and dispenser of bangles and battlezone aphorisms.

Biopics are a sketchy style purely as a result of most of them comply with an episodic framework and are restricted by the ideas of veracity and size. What makes a product of this style memorable is how and the place the central battle of a movie is positioned. In Oppenheimer, which got here out earlier this yr, it was the revocation of the safety clearance of the protagonist and the way the movie wound itself round that. Sam Bahadur chooses to inform the story of its celebrated protagonist with out a lot narrative pyrotechnics, divergence or problematising Manekshaw’s current appropriation as the last word sigma male. It’s so single-mindedly dedicated to reaping the rewards of bringing his legend alive on display screen that it finally ends up delivering a hagiography. In reality, the characterisation of Manekshaw’s Pakistani counterpart, Yahya Khan (Mohd Zeeshan Ayyub), receives extra nuance (however not with out some scary ageing make-up and prosthetics).

If there’s one factor that retains you hooked to this movie, it needs to be Vicky Kaushal. After a largely underwhelming yr when it comes to characters written for him in Govinda Naam Mera, Zara Hatke Zara Bachke and The Nice Indian Household, Sam Bahadur provides Kaushal simply the form of magic to work that he has showcased in Sardar Udham, Raazi (2018) and Masaan (2015). Within the arms of a lesser performer, Manekshaw’s gait, affected vocalisation and extensively identified easy appeal and fast wit may appear to be a caricature, however the ever-confident Kaushal maintains a agency grip over the character. His offscreen candour and self-accepting methods translate superbly into the protagonist’s optimism and unwavering religion in his skills.

Sanya Malhotra, as Sam’s winsome spouse Silloo Bode, brings an emotional anchor to the Manekshaw family, complementing his maverick power with the benefit that she has come to exhibit most just lately in Jawan and Kathal. It’s continuously hinted at within the movie that Manekshaw’s wins come at the price of Silloo and their daughters. Fatima Sana Shaikh as Indira Gandhi, nevertheless, is essentially an unsteady portrayal whose blame lay largely on the casting selection.

The movie’s music is loud, distracting and unmelodious (the conflict anthem Badhte Chalo is unbelievably insipid and inelegant), which is shocking contemplating Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s apparent musical prowess and the trio’s final fabulous collaboration with Gulzar, Raazi. Along with a middling background rating, Sam Bahadur additionally makes efficient use of archival footage to maintain the narrative and convey a documentary gravitas to the proceedings, however even that contributes to the movie’s passive linearity and staccato time leaps.

Sam Bahadur will be seen as candy and fascinating within the particular person segments of Manekshaw’s life that collectively kind the movie’s plot. They’re shot, designed and acted very properly (props to cinematographer Jay I Patel’s work on the air strikes and fight scenes in Burma) and may simply make it value watching this larger-than-life vignette reel within the theatres. However the strands that tie them collectively, reminiscent of Manekshaw’s banter along with his radio set-carrying cook dinner, the main man and his woman’s ballroom meet-cute — or the sequence the place he’s seen making the wildly widespread declaration about gurkhas and concern, really feel disjointed and in determined have to be lower some slack on account of the movie’s largely sanguine tone.

Solid: Vicky Kaushal, Sanya Malhotra, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, Neeraj Kabi

Path: Meghna Gulzar

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