Sam Bahadur - 2 hr 30 - Hindi - Biopic - Zee5
Comfortably one of the Top 3 male actors going around in the Hindi movie industry at this time, Vicky Kaushal has endeared himself with a range of wonderful performances - Honestly however, some of his best performances have been characters that have cleverly tapped into his Punjabi lineage , so over a longer term - hopefully he will develop his range.
In this movie - he seems very comfortable demonstrating charm (off duty) and exudes class in the sequences in the corridors of power. One of the advantages of doing biopics is that there is generally reference material about the character / photos/videos and the preparation is evident - When the first promo of this movie came out - Vicky was a splitting image of the great man. He definitely does a terrific job, even though sometimes it looks rehearsed. Overall - he is pretty darn good and fortunately for him the character tone is diametrically oppositie to "Sardar Udham", that you can get to experience a breezy performance.
The movie overall is just about OK - one wonders if there is no official biography sanctioned on such a towering presence - one of the founding fathers of India's army might - it is also possible that material may have been sensitive, no one would know - but if you read Sam Maneckshaw's wiki page AFTER watching the movie - one may wonder if the page was indeed the script/source material for the movie OR if the page was actually updated by someone who saw the film 🤣.
The support cast is fairly limited to a few scenes - Mohd Zeeshan Ayub funnily gets two scenes as the real he in the first half as Gen Yahyah Khan - Sam's contemporary and friend, who eventually becomes a key adversary in 1971- the second half the character is so caked up to look authentic, that one wonders if it was indeed the original actor or someone else! - but simply not enough.
Sanya Malhotra is ok as his wife. Fatima Sana Shaikh as Mrs Gandhi gets a few scenes - fortunately not made caricaturish (given the trend in some of the more recent Indira Gandhi portrayals). Fortunately- the movie stays away from jingoism or over portraying events and largely stays apolitical (pleasantly so). It is definitely worth a watch for "Vicky"pedia.
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