Shershaah Movie Review - Sidharth Malhotra Is Unconvincing In This Bland Patriotic Film

The opening of Vishnuvardhan's Shershaah assures us that the cinematography and sound design would plunge us right into the middle of a fight. We see Captain Vikram Batra (Sidharth Malhotra) and his team under fire. Vikram looks at the soldiers, picks out a grenade from his pocket, and pounces without cover to throw the bomb inside the enemy bunker. You are instantly hooked, thanks to the technical achievements. But as soon as the film cuts to the past, the structure collapses, and your attention dilutes almost immediately.

Biopics are made to praise (un)sung heroes as they try to inform us about their subject's struggles and bravery. In this single-minded pursuit, the filmmakers forget to do justice to the chosen medium of cinema. Naturally, what they end up creating is not far from a Wikipedia entry. All the characters are one-dimensional, and some register their presence by complementing the man or woman at the center. In Shershaah, Naib Subedar Bansi Lal Sharma (Anil Charanjeett) takes the responsibility of praising Vikram. "Aaj jo dekhna na, pehle kabhi nahi dekha. Saamne se firing ho rahi hai aur hamare Batra sahab jo hai woh kud gaye. Seedha bedhadak," says Bansi. The others join him by expressing their desire to work under Vikram's command. Bansi is also saddled with that cliché moment where you know death is coming because the character fondly remembers his family.

For the most part, what you really learn about Vikram is that he is from Palampur. Shershaah makes sure the name of the place gets drilled inside your mind by finding opportunities for Vikram to announce the P-word. The opportunity comes through a senior whose residence is 20 kilometers away from his. The opportunity comes through her love Dimple (Kiara Advani), to whom he says, "Palampur ka seedha saadha launda hun," while proposing marriage. The opportunity comes through Lt. Col Y. K. Joshi (Shataf Figar), who asks Vikram from where he is. If someone had asked me the name of my hometown right after I had finished watching Shershaah, I would have replied Palampur.

Vikram's story is narrated to both the reel and real audience by his twin brother Vishal (Malhotra again). This storytelling technique does not make sense. Remove the scenes at the IN Talks, and you won't find much difference. The only explanation for using Vishal as the narrator might be that the film wanted to make up for the fact that he is erased from the main story. After seeing them together in childhood, we don't ever see Vikram and Vishal in one frame. What one thinks about another is left unexplored. When Joshi tells Vikram how he wished both Batra sons would have served in the army, the film doesn't take this chance to allow Vikram to comment on his brother's career choice. Is he happy with the path Vishal has taken, or does he, too, like Joshi wanted his twin in the army?

Shershaah shows no interest in personal relationships. Both the familial and romantic bonds are flimsy and lack depth. Vikram and Dimple's love story proceeds like a typical romantic plot: two lovers, different status, a strict father who rejects the boy, and a committed girl who swears she would either tie the knot with the person of her choice or not marry at all. Vikram even proposes on his knees like a filmy hero. To top it all, there is no spark between the leads. A character remarks that whatever is brewing between the couple is not chemistry but biology. Well, we don't witness any chemistry or biology. When Dimple kisses Vikram in an empty corridor, you think you are viewing the union of two wooden sculptures. Dimple complains that Vikram doesn't always reply to her letters. There is a scene here where we see him writing back to her. And what does he write? An expository backstory detailing how they met, something I bet she knows about. Yes, the film wants to fill us in on the past, but it could have done it in a better way without making it appear as an information dump.

The entire cast is okay, except for Malhotra. He mistakes making faces with acting. His inabilities stick out when he shares the screen with other actors, which is almost all the time. When someone close to him dies, his face doesn't register either shock or dismay. What you receive is a textbook expression of sadness. There is no realness to it. Malhotra is not able to sell himself as a soldier. We are always consciously aware that we are watching a good-looking model trying to act like a soldier. When he delivers lines like, "If you are a fauji, then you live by chance, love by choice, and kill by profession," you don't trust it's coming from within him. Shershaah is filmed in wide angles to give it an epic feel, but there is only so much a lens can do when the leading man and the editing disappoint (the shift from Vikram's final "I love you" phone call to him preparing his soldiers for the fight is an example of a disjointed segue). In the end, Shershaah leaves not with a thunderous roar but with a quiet whimper.

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