A Hero For All Times:
The 1971 Indo-Pak war that resulted in the formation of Bangladesh has, in recent months, been captured on screen from various angles. It was only a matter of time before a biopic of Field Marshal Sam Maneckshaw surfaced. Unfortunately, Sam Bahadur, directed by Meghna Gulzar is too insubstantial and does little justice to the man or that difficult period in India’s history.
Everybody remembers Maneckshaw as the hero of 1971, but not exactly what he did to win that war, for which he and then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi have gone down in every Indian war chronicle. Maybe the director and co-writer (with Bhavani Iyer and Shantanu Srivastava) tried to include so much in their script –literally from his time in the cradle–that the film lost focus. It looks like a Wikipedia-inspired biopic that feels the need to include every known anecdote about the charming-yet-steely Parsi military officer. But, it does not manage to satisfactorily convey what made the man such a legend.
Upto the interval point, the film is an extended prologue—it charts his (Vicky Kaushal) youthful misdemeanours as well as his athletic prowess, his flirtatiousness with women, and his one-look proposal to Siloo (Sanya Malhotra), but no idea about what made him join the army in the first place. The wars that he fought in, his survival after multiple bullet wounds, and his concern for his fellow soldiers are all dutifully noted. It is much later that his leadership qualities come to the fore, that made him so popular with his men. That he remembered every name and face of soldiers under his command, humanizes him. In fact—and this short and effective sequence is used twice—the film gets its title from a nervous Gorkha soldier, unable to pronounce his name, calling him Sam Bahadur.
There was undeniable charisma to the man—and Vicky Kaushal gets that, though he looks nothing like Maneckshaw; un-military-like hunched, lurching walk and speech are reminiscent of Dev Anand. He is shown to speak several Indian languages, but there is not the slightest hint of a Parsi accent. He got away calling everyone “sweetie” even the PM, because of that twinkle in his eye.
He caused a certain about of turbulence because of his unorthodox ways, and was once accused of anti-nationalism by a jealous rival; he impressed Jawaharlal Nehru (Neeraj Kabi, miscast) and Sardar Patel (Govind Namdeo) with his initiative, but the skeleton of the story gets meat on its bones when he comes face to face with Indira Gandhi (Fatima Sana Shaikh) just at interval point.
It needed an actress with a commanding personality and acting chops to play Gandhi—Shaikh is made to play her with coy glances and girlish voice. There is unintentional humour in the way she gives Maneckshaw smouldering looks, causing his wife to get annoyed. In a particularly silly scene, she phones him and asks, “What are you doing? What are you wearing?”
Eventually, the film comes to the impasse between India and the US (Henry Kissinger, coincidentally, died just when this film comes out!) over Pakistan’s genocide in East Pakistan; the influx of refugees forces India to get involved, and this turns out to be Sam Maneckshaw’s finest hour, as he strategises in the war room and inspires his men to win the war. If the earlier battle sequences were indifferently shot, when it comes to 1971, Meghna Gulzar relies on archival footage, and the tone of the film suddenly switches to typical Bollywood war movie mode—slogan shouting and patriotic songs.
It is Vicky Kaushal’s confidence that carries the film through, even though he is not shown aging at all—in contrast his old buddy and now foe, Yahya Khan (Mohammad Zeeshan Ayyub), is given the full prosthetic overdose that makes him look like a clown. The director handles the small, domestic scenes (like with the grumpy cook) better than the grand saga-making sequences—and the biopic, ideally needed a mix of both the intimate and the recorded for posterity. Sam Maneckshaw deserved an epic, and this film just about manages a respectful tribute.
(This piece first appeared in seniorstoday.in)
