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

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.