13 August 2021 | By: Writing Buddha

Movie Review: Shershaah: A grounded portrayal of a Soldier! ***½

1959th BLOG POST



Unfortunately, I have not liked Siddharth Malhotra as an actor ever. I have never understood why girls are crazy about him but whenever I have watched his film, I have always found him less than what he could have done. Therefore, when the movie, Shershaah, was announced which is based on the life and death of Captain Vikram Batra who helped us get back one of the toughest mountain peaks back from Pakistan’s claws in the Kargil War of 1999. He is a superhero since then and I don’t think anyone doesn’t know about him. There are already two Hindi movies based on him such as Lakshya and LOC Kargil so I was very sceptic as to what new Shershaah will offer and will Siddharth be able to take-off such an important character.

 

Yesterday, I watched it on the very first day on Amazon Prime of which I am pretty sure that if the movie must have been released in theatres, the impact of it would have been more than what it is on the OTT platform. The best part about the writing and script has been the humanization of the character of a soldier as much as possible rather than showing as someone who are meant to sacrifice and leave everything behind as they have chosen this for themselves. We are shown Vikram as someone who likes enjoying with friends, dating a girl, fighting with her family for their relationship, smoking cigarette, being a charmer and everything that your next-door-boy must be like.

 

Even when he gets into the Army, he doesn’t get transformed immediately into a very serious guy but remains to be very cool but focused on his responsibility of fighting for his country without fearing about death. You will not find many melodramatic scenes here unlike the kind of Soldier movies that we see. Though the romantic songs in the movie are something you don’t intend to watch but still they are a nice inclusion as it makes the portrayal of a patriotic movie little different than others where you only see the partner crying in song while leaving their better half for the Battle or War.

 

The dialogues are powerful in the movie as they convey the agenda behind it clearly. The songs are soulful, and they will find place in your playlist. The locations and shots are cinematic as you feel you are at the location, or you would wish to backpack and leave for mountains. Every scene is so aesthetically beautiful that you would want to frame each of them. The casting is great as everyone in their role looked perfect and not a single actor is out of sync with their character. I liked the background music but sometimes they make it little tough for you to hear what the characters are speaking among themselves in whispering tone. Also, I felt that the dubbing of the voice is not nicely synched with the video in few scenes as you can identify the gap between the movement of lips and the words spoken by the actors.

 

Talking about the lead performances, Siddharth Malhotra does well. As far as my belief goes – this is his career-best performance and touching something like this again is going to be tough for him. He makes you completely believe in the charming personality of the character who turns from a die-hard romantic boy to a Lieutenant and finally ends up being Captain in the Indian Army. Kiara Advani, as always, makes her screen presence felt and you would want to keep watching her whenever she is performing. There is something about her that makes her acceptable in every role she performs – either major or minor.

 

Overall, this is not a very machoism kind of a movie where you would want to become the lead character yourself and do the task. This is written and directed in a way that makes everything look and sound grounded. So, you’ll not find that Josh of URI or emotional quotient like Border but a very different portrayal of Indian Army’s efforts to win a War. Also, what kind of effort Batra made to get into the Army is completely missing from the script. I give this movie 3.5 stars out of 5. It is a one-time watch for sure.  



Thanks.

 

WRITING BUDDHA 



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