Movie Review: Sarbjit

Release Date:  May 20, 2016
Cast: Randeep Hooda, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Richa Chadda, Darshan Kumar
Director: Omung Kumar
Genre:  Biopic
Duration: 2 hours 11 minutes

Sarbjit brings you closer to the lives and times of people living at the confluence of two nations that are mostly in a state of war-like confrontation. The movie shows how ordinary people living simpler, happier lives can get entangled in the web of hatred, distrust, red tape, bureaucracy, and politics. Sarbjit is also about the infallible strength of family relations, one that will go any length to get justice for a loved one.

The movie takes you back to the year 1990, when tensions between the two countries, India and Pakistan, have flared up. Allegedly, acts of terrorism have been conducted in Pakistan, which Pakistani authorities claim to be carried out by an Indian. As fate would have it, one day, an ordinary Punjabi farmer Sarbjit (Randeep), gets drunk and mistakenly crosses the India-Pakistan border. Sarbjit goes missing and nobody knows what happened to him until after almost 9 months, Sarbjit’s sister Dalbir (Aishwarya), receives a letter from Pakistani authorities informing that Sarbjit has been found involved in a bomb blast case and is locked in a jail in Pakistan. Sarbjit’s family is devastated by this development, and the focus shifts to Dalbir who vows to fight the system and bring back his innocent brother Sarbjit.

Sarbjit features one of the best performances by Randeep Hooda. The actor had put in a lot of effort to get under the character’s skin, things like losing several kilos of weight and keeping himself chained in a small room for 24 hours with very limited food. Some people had termed such extremities as foolishness, but when you watch the character on screen, you can see it’s as close as one can get to the real Sarbjit. Randeep’s performance in Sarbjit is a defining moment in Indian cinema, since such extreme method acting has never been experimented and never been executed with such great finesse. Aishwarya on the other hand fails to reach the level of maturity she is expected to deliver. She continues to wail and scream, similar to her performance in movie Jazbaa, which appears hugely melodramatic and unreal.

Go for Sarbjit to watch a never-seen-before performance by Randeep Hooda. You will love the character, his strength and determination, and how one man with a strong will can make an entire nation see the truth.