Sarzameen review: A film that forgets Sar, loses Zameen, still thinks it's patriotic

India Today

3 days ago

Another day, another story of maksad, jung, a lopsided sense of nationalism, and emotional arcs that Bollywood never gets entirely right while attempting a patriotic drama without jingoism. 'Sarzameen', from Karan Johar's Dharma Productions, has absolutely nothing that works - not for the genre, not for the makers, not for the actors and certainly not for the audience. The twist is not twisted enough, and the story seems to be written with the most fictionalised understanding of how the Indian Army or even terrorist outfits function.advertisementThe trailer already revealed the premise: an army officer's son is abducted, and he eventually turns into a terrorist after a life-altering incident. What the trailer didn't prepare us for was how the film takes this promising hook and turns it into a dull, baffling trope.Ibrahim Ali Khan is not convincing as the rebellious son-turned-terrorist, and Prithviraj Sukumaran, despite his natural intensity, seems abandoned by both the writing (Ayush Soni, Kayoze Irani) and direction (Kayoze Irani, a debutant). Kajol, as the boy's mother, seems partly loud and partly lost - a character built on emotional cliches rather than real experiences.
And then there's the believability - or the complete lack of it. Which national agency, in reality, would allow a terrorist to freely keep and raise an army officer's son? What kind of protocol-breaking, logic-defying world does this film operate in? Even more baffling is the portrayal of the army officer's wife. Anyone remotely familiar with the families of our armed forces would know the strength and dignity they carry - especially the women who stand tall in the face of unimaginable loss. We've seen them offer salutes, not screams, even as their loved ones return draped in the national flag. But here, Kajol's character is reduced to a howling, emotionally erratic version of a mother, stripped of the very steel that defines so many real-life army wives. Nothing dramatic, just deeply disconnected from reality.'Sarzameen' tries to be a film about the human cost of war, about radicalisation, and about how fragile the line is between loyalty and betrayal. But it ends up being a muddled mess of half-baked ideologies, lazy writing, and loud background music trying to make up for the lack of real intensity. You don't feel for the boy, you don't root for the father, and you don't mourn for the mother. The film never earns it.Though, you do fall for the stunning Kashmir scenery. The place is pure magic, and you feel it - every single time the camera glides from lush meadows to endless skies embroidered with silver-tipped mountains. It's the one thing that stirs genuine emotion: the land itself, not the story unfolding on it.advertisementEven the action sequences - usually a saving grace in these dramas - feel strangely inert, like they were choreographed without stakes. The tension is missing, the urgency is absent, and the cinematography doesn't elevate the material beyond average. A subject this politically sensitive and emotionally rich deserved a far better film.Even saying 'Sarzameen' is all style and no soul would have been generous - it boils down to empty monologues and staggeringly flat performances, with Ibrahim struggling to rise above high-school-play levels of conviction. Watch it if you want to see how a promising idea can be flattened by poor execution.- Ends1.5 stars out of 5 for 'Sarzameen'.Trending Reel