Review: Sam Bahadur: The Amar Chitra Katha Version

Sam Bahadur is a mechanical summary of his life, ticking off one chapter after another without bothering to pause or ponder over their significance and influences, observes Sukanya Verma.

A formidable figure of the Indian armed forces, Field Marshal Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw's name evokes reverence and awe for his extraordinary achievements in war, his shrewd strategies and rare foresight, his sassy humour and Parsi pizzazz and, above all, that unflappable temper no matter how tricky or tough a situation.

Phrases like 'They don't make them like that anymore' got coined because of luminaries like him. And while a movie on such a historical figure isn't unwarranted at all, it's easier said than done to bring such larger-than-life force on celluloid.

Meghna Gulzar's biopic Sam Bahadur offers a straightforward portrait of the Indian military's most famous commander. There's no question that it's a meticulously researched and detailed account of her glorious subject's triumphs. But it is also disappointingly impersonal in its approach.

Nothing that the movie tells isn't already available in the public domain.

India's first Field Marshal could fluently speak in numerous Indian languages, survived multiple bullet injuries in his stomach during World War II, oversaw Kashmir's accession to India in 1947, fought the war of 1962, masterminded India's victory over Pakistan through the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971 and received laurels like the Military Cross, Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan in his four-decade career.

Sam Bahadur plays out like an Amar Chitra Katha comic -- a mechanical summary of his life, ticking off one chapter after another without bothering to pause or ponder over their significance and influences.

Like many biopics it has the air of a passed-on anecdote, highlighted in sepia-toned markers, not the spontaneity of real time. Or wisdom in hindsight.

When we first see the Field Marshal, it's not him but his towering presence captured in a Gorkha sentry's awestruck eyes. Jay I Patel's camera then shifts its gaze on a silhouette in green and eyes as sparkly as stainless steel.

When his face is finally revealed, Vicky Kaushal is nowhere to be found. What we see is a commitment to become Sam Bahadur. He may never fully become the person but the idea of him? Oh yes.

It's a studiously mannered performance, occasionally leaning on affectations yet exuding enough eloquence, charisma and conviction to steadily, self-assuredly walk the thin line between vision and version from start to finish.

Spanning Field Marshal Manekshaw's journey from rebellious cadet to a five-star general officer, Vicky's striking (seldom ageing) physicality sporting a hunched shoulder -- its angle more acute than it needs to be, light-eyed contact lenses and brushy moustache bears passing resemblance to a young Rajendra Gupta and Ram Lakhan era Jackie Shroff.

But it invites inevitable comparisons with Dev Anand's Major Verma in Hum Dono what with the breezy flamboyance and rhythmic dialogue delivery.

As the movie progresses though, his performance comes entirely into its own.

Wish one could say the same about its wanting script, jointly penned, by Bhavana Iyer, Shantanu Shrivastava and Meghna Gulzar.

Be it Filhaal, Talvar, Raazi or Chhapaak, there's an intimacy in Gulzar's work that renders her characters flesh and blood.

Sam Bahadur's passive spirit discounts drama and emotions for battlefield chaos.

Barring one aerial shot of Pakistani soldiers crossing a rocky stream to ambush the Indian Army, none of the combat sequences reveal Gulzar's flair for action.

It's the more juicy bits like Manekshaw's obvious distaste for politicians and their meddling ways that draws more attention.

Clearly, he's no fan of Jawaharlal Nehru's (Neeraj Kabi) soft management and prefers daughter Indira Gandhi's (Fatima Sana Sheikh) aggressive attitude and the movie makes no bones about it.

Except Neeraj Kabi looks more Dobby the Goblin than Nehru while Fatima Sana Sheikh's shrill portrayal has no hint of authority.

Every other political figure is either border lining on caricature or a victim of awful prosthetics makeup. Take Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub as Yahya Khan as he goes from Manekshaw's brooding colleague in pre-Partition days to Pakistan's president and tyrant looking something like a cross between Danny DeVito's Penguin and WWF star The Undertaker's manager Paul Bearer.

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (Govind Namdeo) grumbles over the last-minute Kashmir bomb dropped by the British before departing from India even as Nehru tries to subdue him like a wife not wanting any public tamasha.

The differences are subtle, almost blink and miss.

As is the urgency felt by the officials, far more thrilling in Manekshaw's real-life accounts, facilitating Kashmir's accession to India but never comes through.

'He doesn't hate anyone, he loves himself the most,' Defence Minister V K Krishna Menon tells a dour-faced General Brij Mohan Kaul only to proceed with a scheme that forced Manekshaw to defend himself against anti-national charges. It's a winsome moment as our man, adorable and arrogant at once, bowls them over with characteristic humour and unflinching logic.

Too close on the heels of Pippa, also a RSVP production, Sam Bahadur offers yet another revision of the events of the Bangladesh Liberation War and India-Pakistan's 1971 face-off. In absence of fresh perspective, the jingoism overkill is tiring.

'Pakistan ko yeh jung hamesha yaad rehni chahiye,' we are reminded yet again.

In place of a cinematic climax recreating the gallantry at work, Sam Bahadur opts for a docudrama finish. As valuable some of the exclusively curated war footage is, the bizarrely rushed end felt a bit of a cop out.

Sam Bahadur is much too content by Vicky's transformation and neglects to give the characters around him any value.

When he meets future wife Siloo (Sanya Malhotra) for the first time, he predicts, I will marry you like he'll predict war on several occasions.

We see a great deal of the Field Marshal but far too little of the man off-duty.

More than his wife or kids, one sees more of his bantering equation with the perennially grumpy cook Swami.

Big or small, there's no role Sanya Malhotra cannot master.

Draped in traditional Gara embroidered saris and offering the mandatory Parsi delicacies like Lagan nu Custard and Dhansak, she is a picture of authenticity.

But as the biopic progresses, the growing glow of success on her husband's visage only highlights her depressed expressions.

As ambitious she is for him, her forlorn eyes tell another story, like a trapped soul fed up of constantly shifting from location to location in hope of stability.

Gulzar is happier focusing on Indira and Siloo's undercurrents of stereotypical female rivalry.

It's a great disservice to two strong women that they would feel so jealous over a man to look daggers at each other as they do in one of Sam Bahadur's most absurd scenes.

A rare misstep for the otherwise sensitive Meghna, she cannot find a playful tone to suggest a gentle ruffle in one's domestic bliss and another's inadvertent intrusion.

Sam Bahadur struggles a bit around the Field Marshal's extroverted ways as well.

Between painting him a flirt at the onset in a bar sequence with Kalki Koechlin in a flapper dress or hinting a whiff of his sexism as he shuts out Indira Gandhi from entering the Ops Room citing lack of security clearance or warning his battalion to behave decently towards women -- Put your hands in your pockets and think of Sam -- it's mostly vague about the mind of a man who once famously addressed a prime minister as 'sweetie'.

There's a lot of background that never makes it to the movie.

We know he was originally named Cyrus by his doctor daddy but not his initial plan to become a gynaecologist.

We don't learn about his siblings, especially Jemi who served in the armed forces.

Sam Bahadur the movie may not have Sam Bahadur the man's elephantine memory but it remembers a soldier always responds to a salute with a salute.

Leadership of grace and grit, they don't make them like that anymore.