In a week when reportedly two major releases, Param Sundari and Son of Sardaar 2 were postponed due to the hyped-up super-success of Saiyaara, this OTT release made it unabashed but must be leaving the producers and makers more than a shade abashed!
The story is garbled, confused, finally pointless. Not just that. It is abysmally addlepated, grossly absurd and uncompromisingly far-fetched.
Col. Vijay Menon (Prithiviraj Sukumaran) had one of those terrible fathers (Anurag Arora) who always criticized their sons. Vijay himself thus thinks very poorly of his own son, Harman (Jihan Jitendra Hodar), who stammers and is a weakling of sorts in school. This angers his wife, Meher (Kajol), who is very fond of their son.
Vijay is searching for terrorist Mohsin, and he arrests two brothers, Qaabil (K.C. Shankar) and Aabil (Rohed Khan) as he feels they can lead him to Mohsin. Shortly, Harman is kidnapped and a call demand the two terrorists’ release in exchange for Harman’s safety. A devastated Meher implores Vijay to get their son back safely, but at the last moment during the ‘exchange’, Vijay kills Aabil and says that his country’s interests come first, even at the cost of his son. Qaabil has escaped, and a gunshot ensures that now Harman is no more.
But eight years later, Vijay comes to know that Harman (now Ibrahim Ali Khan) is alive. He is overjoyed and brings him home to an incredulous yet ecstatic mother. But soon, he suspects whether it is really Harman as he does not stammer, is fit and strong and calls him ‘Dad’ instead of ‘Appa’. A DNA test is conducted and the obdurate Vijay apologizes to the son with the air of man who says he is what he is thanks to military training (!!!), and not his own personal kinks and backstory!
Never before has our Army been shown to have two cads over two generations of a family!
Harman’s phone has been cloned by Vijay (though gifted by the exultant mother), when he lies to his dad (not Appa!) about not having any phone. Suddenly, subversive messages come through on the cloned phone that is with the army (no clue whether such things can actually scientifically happen). Apparently, Harman is now working for the “other side” and taking revenge on the father. Qaabil has not killed him but is using him as a trained weapon—against Vijay and India as a whole.
The final target is an opening ceremony of a dam to be inaugurated by a senior police officer (Boman Irani). And what do you know? A mysterious figure sends the Indian Army the location of the troublemaker and simultaneously, Meher lands up in Qaabil’s hideout and beats him up viciously.
What goes? Ah, we have an absurd, wannabe-lump-inspiring story that is actually sure to make you yank your own hair in frustration. In the process, the real Mohsin is revealed! Phew!
The screenplay plods a lot, wastes a lot of time in emotional sequences and an excess of melodrama. The explanations are mostly facile and the climax is the silliest I have witnessed in months. When the bomb shows 3.19 minutes to defuse, we see screen goings-on for an excess of over six minutes before it is safely defused a few seconds before the due blast!
A couple of well-sung (Shreya Ghoshal’s voice soothes us along with Kausar Munir’s lyrics in Aa gale lag jaa and Aaj ruk jaa despite any lasting quality in the composition) songs composed by Vishal Khurana K. are very minor and transient saving-graces.
Technically at par, the film is a heavy disappointment from debutant director Kayoze Irani, the legendary Boman Irani’s son. The script, nay, even the story (Aayush Soni), are the main culprits (Soumil Shukla, Kausar Munir, Arun Singh, Jehan Handa) and as per one source, Kayoze has also co-written the screenplay.
Kajol looks a shade old for the first-time ever, acts decently, but must now be seriously concerned about the kind of scripts she greenlights. An actress of her stature cannot do anything lesser now. The child actor who plays Harman has a natural charm and appeal, but Ibrahim Ali Khan as the adult version exhibits the same limitations he showed in his first release, Nadaaniyan, earlier this year. Jitendra Joshi and K.C. Shankar do impress, but the weak spot is Prithviraj in an uber-mechanical turn as Vijay. His expressions are, paradoxically speaking, expressionless, and he is the weakest on-screen part of a weak movie!
A colleague told me here that the lack of jingoism is welcome, but yet again, I don’t agree. Jingoism does recharge patriotic sentiment. But over here, it is melodrama in overdrive as the film itself cannot make up its mind what to be: a patriotic thriller or a family melodrama. The film ends up as a weak version of the average Thalapathy is the G.O.A.T. with the Dilip Kumar-Amitabh Bachchan masterpiece, Shakti (1982) also looming somewhere on the horizon.
Considering everything, easily one of the biggest disappointments of the year.
Rating: *1/2
JioHotstar presents Dharma Productions’ Sarzameen Produced by: Hiroo Yash Johar, Karan Johar, Apoorva Mehta, Adar Poonawalla Directed by: Kayoze Irani Written by: Aayush Soni, Kayoze Irani, Soumil Shukla, Kausar Munir, Arun Singh & Jehan Handa Music: Vishal Khurana K. & Vishal Mishra Starring: Kajol, Prithviraj Sukumuran, Ibrahim Ali Khan, Jitendra Joshi, Mihir Ahuja, K.C. Shankar, Rohed Khan, Anurag Arora, Jihan Jitendra Hodar & others
