Sardar Udham - Amazon Prime

 I was awaiting Sardar Udham with a lot of eagerness because of two reasons. # 1 - It was Shoojit's latest creation and we all know how good a film maker he is. # 2 - It had Vicky Kaushal who is one of the best actors in Bollywood today. The 2hr 42 min film was made with great intent to dive deep into the mind and motives of Sardar Udham Singh that led to the killing of Michael O' Dwyer 20 years after he had given the orders for Jaliwalan Bagh Executions.

The highest point of the film was the last 40 minutes which showcases the Jaliwalan Bagh killings and the diplomatic defense of the incident by the army and bureaucrats of the British. It does shake you, emotionally stirs you and does make you feel angry that till date there is no official apology of the same by the United Kingdom. The film depicts some interesting characterization of Bhagat Singh and his philosophy. The role well depicted by Amol Parashar. 

What I found very interesting is the way the narrative handled the definition of terrorism and  patriotism from the lens of both sides. Its very subtle but there are layers that the story has that can be unpeeled again and again. Its definitely not a very straight jacketed narrative like one would think from a freedom fighters story.

Shoojit Sircar ever since October has been trying a new style of story telling that is extremely slow in its pace. He has been trying his hand in Hollywood style of film making and with Udham Singh he tried his hand to get closer to films like Schindler's List and I commend him for that effort. To a large extent he has succeeded in doing that.

Having said that I was personally found the film lacking the emotional connect for the maximum part barring the last 40 minutes. Is it because of something lacking in the script, is it direction , is it the performance or is it a mix of all, I can't pin point that but to me it did not manage to emotionally engage till I reached the climax of the film. Films like Schindler's List inspite of having a very slow pace managed to unpeel many layers within the story, had powerful character sketching that managed audience to stay hooked and the pace did not hinder, in fact the helped audience to connect better with the film, here however the pace was a hinderance in our intent to emotionally engage with the story.

So, in a nutshell it was a great attempt by Shoojit Sircar & Vicky Kaushal and they did managed to bring a high quality content to the Indian Audience that is of International Standards, I still felt a little underwhelmed by the movie.

Great Effort is what I would like to conclude my summary of the film.