Movie Review: Sardar Udham: Stretchy but an emotional ride! ***½

1970th BLOG POST

Frankly speaking, I never knew that Vicky Kaushal is working on a movie named “Sardar Udham” hence when I saw its release on Amazon Prime, it surprised me. Similarly, I feel very ashamed of saying that I wasn’t aware about Sardar Udham being one of our key freedom fighters who went ahead to avenge the Jallianwallah Bagh massacre and assassinated Michael O’Dwyer in London who was the Governor who approved the order of killing in 1919. I am thankful to the director, Shoojit Sircar, for accepting to talk about a real-life character who has made such an impact and is still forgotten. Also, not much is known about Sardar Udham hence researching and scripting a movie based on him must not have been an easy task for the makers.

 

Talking about the movie, the 1^st half takes you back and forth in timeline which looks thrilling initially but later becomes a nightmare for you as we end up keeping track of the job the character of Vicky Kaushal does in different countries during various time periods. Also, due to lot of use of English starts irritating you after a while. I understand its necessary to keep as it is, but I feel that it should be mentioned somewhere during the trailer of synopsis of the movie about how much percent of Hindi has been used in a Hindi movie perse. That will keep the expectations from the audience right.

 

So, after a lot of juggling between the timeline and difficult screenplay, the movie starts making sense after a while when the killing of Dwyer is shown so early in the movie. And then comes the moment which makes this movie book a special place in your heart. It takes us to the flashback of how and why Jallianwallah Bagh massacre impacted Sardar Udham so much. Seeing all those visuals gives you several goosebumps and I could feel lump in my throat after every two minutes. 

Also, Vicky Kaushal displays one of his best performances during this long segment of post-massacre scenes. Not only here, but there are many scenes where Vicky has stood out and made this as one of his career-defining movies after URI. I must say that he has clearly surpassed his URI performance in many scenes from this movie. Few of them are where he is being sentences to death in the court; other being when he gives free speech.

 

Overall, the movie is not hyper-nationalistic like Akshay Kumar movies. It is narrated keeping everything very undertone and simple. Even in the segments where Sardar Udham and Bhagat Singh are sharing the screen, the things are kept very light rather than giving them a rebellious tone. You need to watch this for the 2^nd half where the Jallianwallah scene begins and appreciate one of the best works from Hindi film industry. Overall, I would still give this movie 3.5 stars. 1.5 stars to the rest of the movie as its really boring and stretchy and 2 stars to the Jallianwallah Bagh scene which is an excellent piece of cinema. Please do watch this movie on Amazon Prime.

 

Thanks.

 

WRITING BUDDHA