Movie Review: Sam Bahadur
The story revolves around the life of Army Chief Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw played by Vicky Kaushal and how he deservingly got titled ‘Sam Bahadur’ by an army officer in the Gorkha Regiment of 8th Gorkha Rifles. The man served in the army even before the partition in World War 2, and after that, he contributed to Sino Indian War (1962), the Indo-Pak War of 1965, and the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971.
Meghna Gulzar reunites with Raazi’s script-writer Bhavani Iyer, and brings in Shantanu Shrivastava (Badhaai Ho, Tevar) to the mix of this unpredictable trio. Unfortunately, the execution falls into the trap of being this routine army inspiration story, checking every stereotype you could name for such films. You know, if two military men are talking about having ‘tasty food’ after being hungry for days due to war, there will occur a sudden battle not to let them have that satisfaction serving a jumpscare.
Gulzar takes the routine route to depict the story of a man who was anything but routine, and that’s where the major loophole is. She reflects the trademarked charisma of Manekshaw through Kaushal but also makes him say cliched things like “I know I would marry you” to a girl he’s meeting for the first time. She displays his valor in its full glory. Still, she also makes a British army medic say, “Anyone with this sense of humor is worth saving,” who’s interviewing Sam as he’s soaking in blood immediately after getting hit by seven bullets throughout his body. I know Sam himself has narrated these incidents before, but when it comes to execution, they lack the finesse and depth such sequences require to create any impact.
The ever-so-dependable Vicky Kaushal is in there from frame zero. He puts in so much effort to bring back Sam Manekshaw through him, and at times, those efforts actually cross some boundaries. Full marks for the physical mannerisms, but the accent gets too inconsistent throughout. At times, he’s literally mimicking Dev Anand & I understand Sam had a very peculiar accent, but the tone Kaushal catches isn’t streamlined to be of the same tempo. Just like Sam, he smoothly switches between languages, and that’s a tough one to crack. Vicky had everything going for being the best version of Manekshaw the movies could ever see; the writing lets him down.
The most Sanya Malhotra as Sam Manekshaw’s wife Siloo gets is visibly annoyed every time he comes home to inform about his transfer to another state, and so does the actor who plays their household; there’s not anything majorly different between the two. Fatima Sana Shaikh is now the worst Indira Gandhi we’ve seen on-screen, worse than Flora Jacob in Raid, who didn’t even show her face for the role. Indira was in her 50s when she met Sam and Fatima; in no way or angle looks that age, even the prosthetics are so lazy that she seems more like herself than the character. Forget looking; she’s not even asked to work on how she sounds. As we all know, Mrs. Gandhi had this conventish accent that reflects nowhere. She looks like a college kid dressed like Indira Gandhi in a Fancy Dress competition happening on Independence Day, and even there, she wouldn’t have won the competition.
Neeraj Kabi as Jawaharlal Nehru & Govind Namdeo as Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel too follow the same fate as Fatima’s Indira. It’s worse for Mohammad Zeeshan Ayyub because the prosthetics team actually tried to make him look like Yahya Khan and failed miserably at it. Ayyub’s act is as pretentious as his make-up.
