Sarzameen review: A soulless family drama disguised as a patriotic film!

Starring Prithviraj Sukumaran, Kajol and Ibrahim Ali Khan, Sarzameen is yet another amalgamation of every done and dusted trope!

Sarzameen review: Directed by Kayoze Irani, Sarzameen revolves around the tensions in Kashmir, a place that is constantly plagued by terror attacks. But in the middle of it all we have Colonel Vijay Menon (Prithviraj Sukumaran) a patriotic army officer who loves his sarzameen more than anything in this world. Even more than his son, Harman (Ibrahim Ali Khan) whose stutter makes him feel rather ashamed in public. But the one who is holding the house together by a thread is Meher (Kajol), a dedicated wife and a mom who is blinded by the love for her son! What starts as every other patriotic film quickly turns into an experience that feels no less than binging a Hindi TV serial. 

In the hunt to find terrorists in the neighbourhood, Vijay fails to find the ones right under his nose who kidnap his son hoping that it would lead to releasing their fellow brothers in jail. But when Vijay refuses to do that, he has to live under the knowledge that they have pretty much sacrificed their son to terrorists. A lot of crying and an eight year jump later, a presumably dead Harman makes his way back to his parents’ life somehow, but this time, a lot about him feels different than before. Is he still the innocent son they loved or has he succumbed to the brainwashing by militant groups is what the suspense is built around. But to tell you the truth, by this point, one simply cannot tell where the hands and legs of this film lie quite literally! When Harman becomes friends with a boy out of nowhere, you just know he is in danger. When he comes back home eight years later, you know he is here to terrorize his father. And the film proves you right every single time!

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But it isn’t just the predictable plot lines that get to you, logic takes a back seat here as well! Throughout all stages of parenting Harman, right from his birth to his teens, Kajol and Prithiviraj Sukumaran look exactly the same. In a scene where Harman mistakenly shoots his mother, she is not even the least bit mad at him. She loves him even more if anything because of course maa ki mamta knows no boundaries! Towards the end, when Harman is shot thrice, he still somehow manages to get up, shoot a terrorist, and defuse a bomb. And don’t even get me started on the action sequences! The film’s lack of awareness that it has a weak script is rather alarming.

It also does not trust its audience to understand things on their own. For instance, it feels the need to mention things like ‘a few days later’ or ‘exchange point’ for when Vijay was supposed to exchange the terrorist in return for Harman. Most of us are capable enough to put two and two together for basic things like this! And don’t even get me started on the performances! Ibrahim Ali Khan’s acting in Nadaaniyan was one that the internet vetoed immediately and this one seems no different either. Whether he is happy, sad, getting punched or shooting someone, the expression is all the same. All of Prithviraj Sukumaran’s dialogues feel like a badly dubbed South Indian film and you just don’t know why! Seeing Kajol’s legacy so far, she feels like a wasted potential here but she does the best she can with the character arc given to her!

Overall, Sarzameen is a two hour twenty minute long film with an inconclusive ending that makes you feel like asking the makers “par kehna kya chahte ho?”. At one point, the film honestly felt like an estranged cousin of Fanaa (which also stars Kajol) that we need to stay away from! Maybe this can finally be the cue for Bollywood to stop with the same patriotic stories just because it happened to work many moons ago!

Sarzameen is currently streaming on JioHotstar!

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