Sarbjit is prominent for few reasons. One is that it presents you a very tragic story between the bitter threads of the two countries. Second is making Aishwarya Rai an actress and third is gifting us a treat to watch Randeep Hooda‘s another, in fact, his most unforgettable performance.
I am not interested in knowing the film’s fate on the box office but I have always been of the opinion that the making of great films based on true stories heavily rely on the direction. Sarbjit despite all the weapons and armour on the ground is where it falls from the peak to the truffles.
Director Omung Kumar is the man more familiar to the art direction or say, the production designing where he is very good at. In the past, he was involved in the production designing of Bhansali’s Black and Saawariya, Mishra’s Chameli and Ghai’s Yuvvraaj. And that is the same impression in his Sarbjit too but the technical aspects of narration are full of flaws.
First thing first, it is a boring film. By boring I mean the story of Sarabjit deserves a 90-minute screen time, not 130 minutes. When the film reaches the half, you begin thinking what is left in the remaining half. The narration is uselessly stretched in the second half and feels if the director is borrowing some time to connect the dots and reach the conclusion.
Like every other Indian film, the portrayals of the media and Pakistani civilians are hyper-hilarious. Why on earth a Pakistani is sketched with a topi on his head, shalwar-kameez on the body, over-disciplined Urdu like “Aap, Janab” in the dialogues, beards like pubic hairs or the one like General Aladeen, mufflers hanging on shoulders, kohl in eyes? Even filmmakers from the west are more skilful in portraying Pakistanis than the neighbours.
Urdu texts are laughable. There is a scene when sister Dalbir (Aish) handover the Pakistani newspaper to father darji and the viewers have a chance to view mere 4 seconds of the newspaper. The one with the knowledge or Urdu will find hilarious mistakes and put a question mark on the technicalities of the film.
Few of the scenes were out of logic like Dalbir being thrown and hit on her head while attempting to speak the minister. Another one is Pakistani policewomen checking Sarabjit’s family before they meet that is way too much. A policewoman takes out the glasses of Dalbir and checks it like what? Another one wipes the lipstick and removes the red dot God knows why?
The delight is the sibling chemistry between Randeep and Aishwarya. Randeep has defined ‘pain’ to a new dimension. He lost 18 kg in 28 days. And Aishwarya has displayed a strong command of emotional and vocal artistry after an acting career of totalled performances.
Sadly Richa Chadda doesn’t have enough dialogues or equal weight of performance on the screen as Aish’s despite being the wife of Sarabjit. The film is a genuine one-timer thanks to the directional disaster but the major plus of the multiple performances will keep you alive.
Ratings: 5/10
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Sami Naik | Film Critic 