Shershaah | Not A Movie Review by Movie Insert | Sidharth Malhotra, Kiara Advani | MOVIE INSERT

  A war movie, about a highly decorated armyman who famously laid his life for the country, played by a well-loved movie star, Shershaah has a lot already working for it. Does the movie work though? Hey y'all, my name is Sucharita, this is FilmCompanion, you're watching Not A Movie Review and right now I’m not goingto be reviewing Shershaah. Captain Vikram Batra’s tale is stuff of legends. A young life lost too soon in a war all ofus actually saw happen, the mention of the word Kargil takes one backto wherever we were in 1999 when the first news reports broke out. Usmein, a jovial, cheerful, excited 24 yearold, martyred in the service of the nation, posthumously winning the Param Vir Chakra,is a story which deserves respectful telling, to save for posterity and passed down togenerations for whom Kargil might not evoke quite the same sentiment. Story, screenplay and dialogue writer SandeepSrivastava and director Vishnu Varadhan attempt to do just that, justice to Captain Batra’s legacyand what his actions meant to India’s Kargil victory. Hence, I sense an actual, earnest effort to bring him to our screens with an almost deferential politeness. Shershaah’s script and screenplay do not challengethe format of the film it's attempting to be. Beat by beat, it presents exactly what youmay assume is coming up next. A soldier fondly talking about his 6-month-olddaughter he's yet to meet, will probably not make it back home. Another who suddenly gets a dedicated dialoguescene, will also see action in the very next moment. The little too long romantic track,going all the way back to college days and how Captain Batra wooedthe woman he had a crush on,  it's all too familiar. In these flashback sequences in fact, whichoffer little new-ness, the film tends to get dull, which is a shame, kyunki you know that theclimax is going to be on a crescendo and we’re just being made to wait,watching unnecessary exposition play out. The cinematography department,where a film like Uri excelled, here is helmed by Kamaljeet Negi. I cannot imagine shooting in the terrain most ofthis film plays out in was anything less than extremely challenging, so full points. Lekin if you tookshots from Shershaah and put them in any other war sequence from countless other Hindi movies,you might not be able to tell the difference. Kiara Advani 

who plays Dimple Cheema is justadorable, she excels at playing characters with rigid parents, opposed to her love interest.A slippery accent aside, she’s perfectly good in the part, going with the theme ofthe unchallenging screenplay.  She’s easily acceptable,an apt casting choice. The work best friend played by a lovely andon-point Shiv Panditt, a home best friend, parents and sisters, plus a desire to excelat his job, all of this surrounds Sidharth Malhotra, enabling him in more ways than one,to become Captain Batra. Because the life of the man he’s gettingto portray is an incredible one already, and the script makes it a point to constantlybe bolstering the character, highlighting his flamboyant filmy side, an easily likeablepersonality, traditional good looks, Sidharth as Captain Batra, makes the character workon screen just as well as it does on paper. In the final moments of the movie, when CaptainBatra's body returns home wrapped in the tricolor, it will make you cry,even if it weren’t designed to. It's finally here when the movie transcendsits cinematic presence and right before it cuts to real life footage and pictures ofCaptain Batra and his fellow army-men in the closing credits, you're strongly remindedthat this is real, this actually happened. This man was 24, had a family, love, friendslike you and I do. It's rather effective, and like I said,it made me choke up a bit. In my opinion, war movies should primarily existto remind their viewers about the futility of war. If they can't commit to that, they needto at least not be asking for more blood. While there isn’t obvious “ghar mein ghuskemaarenge” jingoism at display here thankfully, Shershaah would've benefitted from a morededicated look at the price of war. It ends on an Anand-esque dialogue “umrbhale hi chhoti ho, zindagi badi honi chahiye”. Here’s to hoping it makes you think why CaptainBatra’s age had to be cut short so drastically. Watch the movie on Amazon Prime Video. So, on a scale of 1 to 10, Shershaah is… …30 minutes initial, just get past those,steadily it becomes more interesting, give it thoda time. Subscribe to Film Companion,and give us all your time.