Sam Bahadur Review: Vicky Kaushal is the Lone Warrior

Director: Meghna Gulzar
Writers: Bhavani Iyer, Shantanu Srivastava, Meghna Gulzar
Cast: Vicky Kaushal, Sanya Malhotra, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub

Duration: 150 mins

Available in: Theatres

Ah yes, Vicky Kaushal again. A wonderful actor. A talent that transcends roles. Such a distinct relationship with the camera. In Sam Bahadur, he plays famed Indian military hero Sam Manekshaw like a Ridley Scott movie character. It’s an uncanny cocktail of camp and charisma. You can tell Kaushal is enjoying the heck out of it – that sing-song voice, the performative charm, the lilting gait, the British hangover, the silver-tongued swag. It’s like a character who’s so used to wearing a hammy personality to work that he becomes that person. We see four decades of Manekshaw’s life here, and though there’s not much by way of a cosmetic transformation, you can see Kaushal growing into those mannerisms rather than suddenly unleashing them. In short, he’s a blast to watch. 

Yet, in spite of starring in a biopic that spans at least four wars, Vicky Kaushal’s biggest war is with the film itself. For most of its 150-minute running time, there’s an intense tussle between the pedigree of the actor and the dullness of the narrative. When he pushes, the film-making pulls. When he shines, the writing fires blanks at him. When he takes leaps of faith, the timeline jumps. An incorrigible optimist might argue that this mediocrity is an illusion: Perhaps Kaushal is so good that he makes everything else feel lesser in comparison. But a realist would admit that he deserves better. Nearly every frame he’s in looks like it’s conspiring to defeat him. And I’m sad to report that, ultimately, it’s the film that wins. Who’d have predicted that, in 2023, a soldier’s most daunting enemy would be the stories that appropriate their heroism?

Summarising a Life

For starters, the structure of Sam Bahadur lacks depth. It’s so safe, so straightforward, that I almost expected to see a “storytelling is injurious to health” disclaimer at the bottom. It unfolds in glib episodes. The closest it comes to narrative ambition is the opening scene of a baby being named dovetailing a moment in the late 1960s when the moniker ‘Sam Bahadur’ is coined. Compare this to Kaushal’s other period biopic, Sardar Udham (2021), where the nonlinearity of a journey defined the restless mindscape of a revolutionary. One could say the same about this film – that maybe the linearity evokes the uncomplicated psychology of an army officer. But that’s reading too much into a film you almost expect to like, given the names associated with it. It’s probably reverence – or just cultural anxiety – that keeps the rhythm so formal. 

Not for the first time this year, a sprawling life is reduced to a series of bullet points, where history is filtered through the funnel of the protagonist’s bravado. One moment Sam Manekshaw is a young gentleman cadet being punished for a night out, the next he’s a platoon commander winning a boxing match in Lahore. One moment he approaches a woman at a party, the next they’ve started a family. One moment he’s dining with his friend Major Yahya Khan, the next he’s a multilingual Parsi soldier from Amritsar who chooses India during the Partition while Khan drinks his sadness away. One moment he’s framed by a jealous colleague, the next he’s advising the Prime Minister. Forget the Wiki-momentum of the film. The script is simply not curious enough. Instead of delving into the phases that might have revealed the man within the uniform, it chooses to turn them into neat info-capsules. The ‘who’ makes way for ‘more,’ and even his refined allegiance – one that pits the purity of the battlefield against the murkiness of bureaucracy – is barely explored. 

As a result, the staging of his character traits is unimaginative. For instance, after being shot five times in the chest by a Japanese soldier, a fading Sam Manekshaw is ‘examined’ by a British doctor. The white man is arrogant at first – and broad-strokes arrogant, mind you, like an aristocrat sneering at a famine. But when Manekshaw manages to give a witty answer, he chimes, “Anyone with a sense of humour is worth saving!” and gets to work like it’s Christmas eve. This may have happened, but the scene is so awkwardly executed that it looks comical (rinse+repeat this sentence for every second biopic). At another point, Manekshaw arrives at a far-flung post in Assam. The troops are low. He gives a no-nonsense speech, and the camera cuts to a soldier telling his colleague, “We needed a commander like this, someone who tells us what to do!”. Why so explicit? In one scene, a female journalist cringes when he casually addresses her as ‘sweetie’ during an interview. Seconds later, she notices him addressing his male subordinate the same way. But rather than let the viewers deduct her change of impression, she confesses that she mistook his demeanour as flirty. It’s like a research draft that’s missing the punch of a screenplay.

Losing and Almost-Winning

In terms of politics and treatment, I’ve reached a stage where I’m tempted to write: “Refer to previous review”. Because Sam Bahadur is another addition to Bollywood’s fast-growing Bangladesh Liberation War multiverse – a space shared by mainstream Indian war (or war-adjacent) movies that use the tragedies of 1971 as disposable tubes for its own skincare routine. Recent additions include Mujib: The Making of a Nation and Pippa in the last month alone. Surprisingly, Sam Bahadur employs a lot of archival footage for these portions. This might have been fine if the rest of the film had a similar docudrama-driven tone, but here it feels like a lazy shortcut. Veiled nods to the current climate emerge through familiar tropes: Jawaharlal Nehru (Neeraj Kabi, in one of the film’s many bewildering cameos) is presented as a weak and emotional leader; Pakistan’s president Yahya Khan (a prosthetic-riddled Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub) spends the war clenching his fists around glasses of expensive scotch; and, most of all, the creative liberties are limited to the Indira Gandhi (a deadpan Fatima Sana Shaikh) effect. 

The former Indian Prime Minister is staged as the third woman in Manekshaw’s marriage, much to the rom-com-styled chagrin of his wife Silloo (Sanya Malhotra). It starts off as cheeky, with Silloo rolling her eyes every time the phone rings. It quickly turns corny, when the film crosses over into pulpy terrain by having the head of state and her army chief exchange intense looks in her office. Not to mention an urgent business call that, teasingly, begins with Indira Gandhi asking: “What are you doing, Sam? What are you wearing?”. Again, I get the intent, but the translation is off. 

I suppose the word I’ve also been looking for is ‘disappointing’. Sam Bahadur is created by the team (featuring director Meghna Gulzar and co-writer Bhavani Iyer) behind Raazi (2018), a rare espionage thriller that humanized the ‘enemy’ and investigated the very nature of patriotism. It’s unfair to seek the same balance in the life of a great army officer – or in the language of war itself. But the protagonist’s progressive soul – his vintage pride, his chastening of agenda-driven politicians, his love for victory – is subdued by the film’s hagiographic body. Sam Manekshaw is meant to be an old-fashioned patriot, a dashing reminder of a time when duty superseded borders and divides. At times, this comes through, especially in his doughty subservience to Delhi. However, the biopic makes the mistake of conveying him through the lens of modern nationalism. It believes in what he stands for, but only talks the walk. The climactic anthems – with standard phrases like “Badhte chalo” and “Rab ka banda hai yeh, sab ka banda hai yeh” – ring differently then. The chest contains the heart, but there’s a thin line between the heartbeat of a character and the chest-beating of a story. There’s a thin line between Sam Manekshaw winning and Sam Bahadur losing.