The highly anticipated biographical war film, ‘Shershaah‘ released on Amazon Prime Video at midnight today, 12th August 2021 – and it has been eye-opening experience. The film is based on the life of Captain Vikram Batra and his bravery while serving in the Indian army during the Kargil war. While the story of the late Captain is one we must know about, ‘Shershaah’ didn’t give proper justice – to the legacy of the late Army Captain.
However, many seem to think that this movie is extremely good, with many even claiming that this movie is even better than the ‘Uri: The Surgical Strike‘. Which, is frankly ridiculous. Sure, the stories from both films are quite compelling, but both final products have shown us a varying difference in execution. Still, instead of nitpicking, we have found five concrete reasons why ‘Uri: The Surgical Strike’ is a much better war film than ‘Shershaah’:
Story & Themes
Both movies are war biographies which have emphasis on themes of patriotism and the tireless duty performed by our soldiers every day. However, that’s where most of the similarities end. ‘Shershaah’ is the story of an Army Captain who laid down his life to capture Point 5140, an important tactical location that helped India beat Pakistan in the Kargil War. ‘Uri: The Surgical Strike’ is a revenge war film, where a strike force lead by Major Vihaan Singh Shergill of the Indian Army, took revenge against the terrorist organisation that attacked the town of Uri in Jammu & Kashmir, which caused the deaths of 19 soldiers.
Both stories are quite compelling, but they were executed quite differently from each other. Both films had a lot to cover in their limited runtime, but only one film manages to keep us appraised of the war situation and that wasn’t ‘Shershaah’.
Cinematography, Editing & Direction
Both films have some brilliant cinematography and editing. Still, the work done by A. Sreekar Prasad for ‘Shershaah’ couldn’t come anywhere close to the brilliant work done by Shivkumar V. Panicker for ‘Uri’. The editing, the well-shot action sequences and the brilliant direction by Aditya Dhar make ‘Uri’ the undisputed winner in this category as well.
Music
‘Shershaah’ had some decent songs and an okay OST, but none of the music from the war hero biopic got our blood pumping like the “Jagga Jiteya” and “Jigra” from ‘Uri: The Surgical Strike’.
That’s about it. Music from ‘Shershaah’ isn’t all that memorable, to begin with.
Supporting Cast
This category will feel like a joke. Here’s why-‘Shershaah’ had a lot of plot points to cover in the life of Vikram Batra, Sidharth Malhotra took up most of the screen time in the film. The next actor to get a decent amount of screen time would be a tie between the female lead, ‘Kiara Advani’ and Vikram Bhatra’s colleague and friend portrayed by Shiv Panditt. Both actors manage to get any screentime over 20 mins, out of a nearly 160-minute runtime – and it got completely wasted. We don’t get much character development from both supporting characters or any character depth from either of them.
In comparison, ‘Uri: The Surgical Strike’ had a lot of side characters, but each and everyone got a decent amount of screen time to show character depth and motivation. Mohit Raina, Paresh Rawal, Yami Gautam, Kirti Kulhari are all actors that got around the same amount of screen time for ‘Uri’ as the aforementioned ‘Shershaah’ supporting actors and yet, they manage to give brilliant performances within that time frame.
Vicky Kaushal vs. Sidharth Malhotra
We feel there should be a tighter competition between the lead actors – but there really isn’t. Vicky Kaushal shows us that even though he is a soldier, he is someone who cares a lot about his family. He takes up a desk job to take care of his mother, but he ends up leading a surgical strike team to avenge the death of his brother and other fallen soldiers. He gives us a disciplined, nuanced performance and is an important part of the story of ‘Uri’.
Vikram Batra is obviously an important character, especially in his own biopic, but Sidharth Malhotra doesn’t do the war hero justice. We don’t blame him, filling the shoes of a war hero is difficult and this was not a role suited for him. He was too bubbly in personality, and his character development was non-existent. It became incredibly difficult to watch the film, especially due to some of the cringier dialogue the actor was forced to say onscreen.
Overall
These points should be enough to let you know that ‘Uri’ is a far better film than ‘Shershaah’. However, the story of Vikram Batra is an important one, and hopefully, one day, we will get a much better film about the Kargil war hero in the future – a movie worth remembering his legacy.
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