Amazon’s Sardar Udham, Shoojit Sircar’s Grand Comeback

Sardar Udham Singh

Relieved, happy and enthused to see the meritorious Shoojit Sircar back in form. After the atrocious Gulabo Sitabo last year I had given up hope.There is no doubt that Sardar Udham is going to be a brilliant film.

Every frame of the trailer exudes the scent of instant immortality. The frames are frail and yet fabulous.

Udham Singh’s story needed to be brought into the ambit of commercial cinema. I remember seeing a disastrous film back in 1977 where Parikshat Sahni played Udham Singh and Gulzar also had a starring role.

Udham Singh badly needed a goodly screen adaptation. He’s got it. Sardar Udham looks like the coolest bio-pic of the year, excluding perhaps Shershah which has become a cult success for Amazon Prime. Sardar Udham has the potential to be another outright winner for Amazon. It is smoothly narrated and is inflammable in its incendiary message.

For those who came in late, very late,this is the story of the Punjabi freedom fighter who sneaked into England to assassinate the Britisher who had ordered the massacre in Jallianwala Bagh.

Sircar has transformed the original story into some kind of a thriller with firstrate production values and a sense of nostalgic grace that doesn’t come cheap. Those shots of London in the 1920s must have cost a bomb. Quite a long way from the dingy dilapidated crumbling mansion in Lucknow where Sircar shot his last Gulabo Sitabo.

Vicky Kaushal in the title role looks just about adequate. ‘Born-to-play’ Udham Singh? Not quite. But I am sure he has done justice to the martyr who battles injustice.

The eclectic cast of brown and gora actors looks interesting, But where oh where is Banita Sandhu , the lovely British Indian girl Sircar introduced in his best film to date October?

And surprise, October is here again. This time on October 16 Amazon Prime Video brings to us what is possibly Shoojit Sircar’s best film to date.

Welcome back, Shoojitda.