What Is the Story About?
The film Shershaah is based on the real life story of Captain Vikram Batra. He was an officer of the Indian Army, who got posthumously awarded with the Param Vir Chakra, India’s highest and most prestigious award for valour, for his actions during the 1999 Kargil War in Kashmir between India and Pakistan.
Performances?
Since the movie focuses mainly on Vikram Batra, Sidharth Malhotra is front and foremost throughout the movie. And normally that is a good thing – the actor will have the entirety of the movie to give us a believable portrayal of the lead character. However, Siddharth has just stuck to the script only and manages to spout out dialogue in a bubbly fashion. Furthermore, he has to portray Vikram’s twin brother, Vishal onscreen as well, but there is barely any difference in personality between the twin brothers – so it was a good thing that the actor didn’t have to portray both characters simultaneously.
Kiara Advani doesn’t have much to do in this film. She portrays the main love interest, but she gets 15-17 minutes of screen time at max. Of course, it makes sense that she doesn’t get many scenes in a war film, however, she is extremely forgettable in this role. Sidharth manages to have more screen time with Shiv Pandit as well as better chemistry (which isn’t much). Both Sidharth and Kiara manage to have a decent regional accent, however.
Analysis
Shershaah revolves around Vikram Batra, the protagonist of the film. Every other character shown on screen has to work off him, making it hard to get any back-story for any of the other characters within the movie. This would normally be fine, except for the fact that this is a biographical war film. At the end of this movie, there is a post credit scene showing us what each and every person involved in Vikram’s life is doing right now.
Again, this is fine. However, we can only recognize three or four soldiers out of the 15+ soldiers who are shown in the “Where are they now and what are they doing” part. This lack of screen time with the remaining soldiers will only continue to leave their stories forgotten. As far as we can see, there was enough content in the film for a TV series of ‘Band of brothers’ quality, but the film breezes through key war points just to get us invested in Vikram’s story again.
Again – keeping us invested around Vikram’s story is fine, since the movie is about him. But this causes the movie to skip many important points regarding the war, and we only get parts of it in the form of poor exposition. The news which kept showing in the background while Vikram went back home to meet his fiancé and family is an example of this type of exposition. Another example of poor exposition is when Col. Yogesh Kumar Joshi explains the plan to capture Point 5140.
The film has decent action sequences and well put together cinematography. The landscapes are beautiful, despite the situation and the director and editor manage to do some good work in capturing the scenery. The story behind the movie is also impressive and seeing Captain Vikram Batra’s bravery onscreen is a definite plus.
However, it does mean that there are some ridiculous action sequences also. The movie shows Sidharth’s Vikram taking on three Pakistani soldiers from behind, all on his own. But, the way he approached the bunker, which had the three soldiers, didn’t look like the work of a soldier – rather the work of an action superstar in a Bollywood film. Even if we do want to mock the Pakistanis in this film for their storm trooper aim, we know that real life Pakistani soldiers are not incompetent. If the three managed to subdue Vikram, he would have been shot dead instantly. We understand that this might actually have happened in real life – but the way the film was shot, these solo action sequences instill doubts in our minds.
Another negative thing about the movie is the dialogues. A lot of it is fine, but Sidharth manages to get a good amount of shite dialogue to say on screen. For his sake, we hope that he didn’t improvise any. Plus a lot of the extras who were given such dialogue didn’t even try to make the dialogue sound believable. A lot of these dialogues are said with a straight face and that is funny (and not in a good way). This kind of dialogue makes the movie trademark-Bollywood.
Overall, Shershaah is a film with many problems but somehow manages to be passable thanks to its plot and action sequences. A different lead actor (or a better prepared Sidharth Malhotra) and better extras can make this movie much better.
Other Artists?
Shiv Pandit gives a decent portrayal as Captain Sanjeev Jamwal. He is first aloof to Vikram’s extremely welcoming nature, which then turns into admiration and later into friendship. Shiv gives us a decent portrayal of that with limited screen time and character development. Pawan Chopra and Sahil Vaid give us a decent performance as Vikram’s father and brother respectively, for a relatively small amount of screen time.
Music and Other Departments?
The score for this movie was done by John Stewart Eduri, while the songs were done by Tanishk Bagchi, B Praak, Jaani, Jasleen Royal, Javed-Mohsin and Vikram Montrose. The music is decent, but nothing really great. The story however was good. Sandeep Srivastava does a good job with the overall screenplay, but the dialogue needs work. Vishnuvardhan made his Bollywood directorial debut with this film – average for his first attempt. The cinematography by Kamaljeet Negi is a huge selling point for this movie.
Highlights?
Action Sequences
Story
Cinematography
Drawbacks?
Important Plot Point Skipping
Bad Acting
Continuity Issues
Cringey Dialogue
Did I Enjoy It?
In parts
Will You Recommend It?
If you have the time and are passionate about war films. Otherwise skipping this movie would be totally fine.
Shershaah Review by Binged Bureau
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