Subedaar Review:
Anil Kapoor sure simmers a lot in Subedaar. His ex-soldier Arjun Maurya clenches his fists in a crack at every insult that comes his way. His death stare suffices for dialogues. He gets visions of himself, in Army camouflage, standing and staring at his tormentors. Most of Subedaar is waiting for Kapoor’s Clint Eastwood broodiness to explode into a John Wick bloodbath. When he finally snaps some goons do get their arms twisted and others have their heads bashed against walls but the impact doesn’t conclude the preceding tremors. I am not baying for some brain-matter battering but the Suresh Triveni directorial sets up more than it can deliver.
Director: Suresh Triveni
Writers: Prajwal Chandrashekar and Suresh Triveni
Cast: Anil Kapoor, Radhikka Madan, Saurabh Shukla, Aditya Rawal, Mona Singh and Faisal Malik
Streaming on: Prime Video
Dealing with his wife’s demise, ex-Subedaar Arjun Maurya has decided to retire in a sandy, North Indian town. He has a tense relationship with his daughter Shyama (Radhikka Madan). This nameless town whose visuals resemble Madhya Pradesh’s Chambal area is infested with a sand mafia gang, whose queenpin is jailed gangster Babli Didi (Mona Singh). Her half-brother Prince (Aditya Rawal) and man-Friday Softy bhaiyya (Faisal Malik) run business while she is imprisoned. While Softy is level-headed, Prince is an entitled live-wire who enjoys violent excesses. Soon enough he steps over a line with Kapoor’s Arjun which leads to a chain reaction of provocation and retribution.
Subedaar spends most of its time in one unnecessary instigation after another. The Prince-Arjun dynamic gets repetitive after a point. Shyama, on the other hand, is dealing with problems of her own which involves a video and a creep in her college. When the film’s teaser came out, Subedaar seemed to be a story of a retired armyman grappling with post-war PTSD, who has to fight a both internal and external battle and mend a strain relationship with his daughter. The war-trauma angle seems to be watered down, possibly because under the current political environment even former soldiers can’t be shown as people with emotions more complicated than either sacrifice or glory.
On the other hand, we don’t stay focused on Arjun’s guilt of not being with his wife in her final moments. Subedaar branches out in multiple directions none of which organically merge to reach a final destination. Shyama’s fight with a bunch of lecherous hooligans in her college is impactful but doesn’t go with the central narrative. The angle of young children drowning in the river owing to excessive sand mining is also just introduced and never explored. We don’t get one central emotion to latch on to. The film too, in a vain attempt to rejig the traditional three-act structure, is divided into chapters or rather instances titled “Janamdin” (birthday), “Saalgirah” (anniversary) and “dost” (friend), among others. They don’t necessarily add anything to the story and merely stretch a lacklustre narrative. The film also seems to be choppily edited. Just when you expect an intense action scene, the screen cuts to black only to reveal the aftermath of the fight. We later see how it all unfolded but by then the want and the emotion has been lost.
Director Suresh Triveni huddles together an impressive ensemble. Anil Kapoor firmly holds the fort as he plays a volcano about to explode. Radhikka Madan is fiery as Shyama and commands the screen, while Mona Singh and Faisal Malik continue to impress as performers who can hold sway with just one gesture or a throwaway dialogue. But the most fun is Aditya Rawal as he succumbs to the loud absurdity of Prince.
What is disappointing is that despite getting its ingredients right, Subedaar still can’t land the taste. There are the dusty visuals, the flowery, Bundelkhandi language and the violence but nothing gels well. It all seems assembled, derivative, like another leaf out of the Wasseypur- Mirzapur handbook. A slow-cooked dish definitely soaks up the flavour, it’s just that Subedaar spends too much time on the stove.