Produced by a big team of producers including Bhushan Kumar, Vashu Bhagnani, Sandeep Singh,Omung Kumar and others and directed by Omung Kumar, the latest released film ‘Sarbjit’ is a biographical emotion filled drama based film, which has been narrated through the perspective of Sarbjit Singh’s sister, Dalbir Kaur, played by Aishwarya Rai. Needless to say that she plays a lifetime role in her acting career so far, though this film, which revolves around Sarbjit Singh played by Randeep Hooda.
The film is set on the backdrop of 1990, with Sarbjit Singh (Randeep Hooda) a happy go lucky young farmer living in a village in Punjab, near Indo- Pak border, with his wife Sukhpreet (Richa Chadda), sister Dalbir Kaur (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan) and old father. He has two little daughters. One day he consumes a drink with his friend on the farms and walks unknowingly into Pakistan territory. He is arrested by Pakistani army and is tortured in the Pakistani jail to death and convicted as Indian Spy and named as Ranjit Singh Mattu, the person behind bomb blasts in Lahore, Pakistan.
As Sarbjit undergoes sentence in Pakistan Jail, his sister Dalbir( Aishwarya Rai Bachchan) fights the battle with the Pakistani Government with the help of a Pakistani lawyer Awais Sheikh (Darshan Kumar)for many years, before Sarbjit finally being declared as innocent . But, after Sarbjit being declared innocent and granted bail after 23 years, he is attacked in the Pakistani jail, by so called terrorists in Pakistan, when he gets badly injured and is hospitalized. On 2nd May, 2013 he is declared dead and his body brought to India later, for the last rites.
The film has focussed more on the fight of Dalbir Kaur to prove her brother innocent and rescue him from Pakistan jail. So, obviously, Aishwarya Rai has more scope to display her acting skills. Watch some of her scenes, while facing Pakistan media and the Police in Lahore, when she goes to meet her brother in jail. Randeep Hooda does well, in the role of Sarbjit, while good support comes from Richa Chadda who plays his wife and others.
Some of the happy moments have been incorporated in the screenplay, through flashback. There are sequence of events, during the 23 years period shown in the film, when we notice the change in Governments in both the countries, besides the attack by Pakistan sponsored terrorists in India and their arrests. The repercussions across the border, after terrorist kasab being hanged and its effect on the release of Sarbjit Singh. By the way, the film makes a statement that as on 18 th July 2015, 403 Indians were in Pakistan jail and 278 Pakistanis in Indian jail, waiting to return home.
Director Omung Kumar has tried to show that not all the people in Pakistan are bad. No wonder, at the end of the film , he delivers a message, through a quote, “Beyond these borders we are the same. Let Politics guide us, not rule us. Let’s pledge to have no more Sarbajits.” The film’s music is just fine for those few background songs, but the cinematography by Kiran Deohans in really good.
Rating (***)