Biopics are always difficult to handle and if it’s pertaining to the life of Sarabjit Singh, the challenge increases manifold. After all, the hardships he suffered for 23 long years and the amount of material available makes it all the more challenging. And not to forget, there’s no entertainment value as such in popular terms. However, the latter is not the reason why Sarbjit fails to make a huge impact. After all, a viewer certainly will go with a certain mindset that one can’t expect naach-gaana and laugh-a-minute-riot in a film like Sarbjit. But what takes the film down is the execution – very fast-paced at times that doesn’t allow the narrative to flow organically.

The story of the movie: Sarabjit Singh (Randeep Hooda) is married to Sukhpreet (Richa Chadha) and lives in Bhikhiwind, Punjab with sister Dalbir (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan) and father (Ram Murti Sharma). On August 28, 1990, Sarabjit gets drunk at night and mistakenly crosses over to the Pakistan side instead of going towards his village. He is arrested and taken to Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail. He is charged for being a spy by the name of Manjit Singh and carrying out 5 bomb blasts in Lahore. When Dalbir learns that Sarabjit is in Pakistan on false charges, she decides to fight it out till the end to get him released. However, the challenges in her journey are immense.

The biggest problem with Sarbjit is that it’s very hurried. The director just wants to rush through things. In the process, one doesn’t really get the chance to properly empathize what the Kaur family must have gone through. Yes, few hurried sequences do make an impact but not all. There are 2 major sequences which flow slowly, gradually and beautifully – when Sarabjit crosses over to Pakistan and when Dalbir and family meet Sarabjit for the first time in jail. Both these scenes are the best portions of the movie because things were allowed to progress at its pace. Otherwise, things are just running ahead in the film. This is especially in the second half. On the positive side, few scenes are nicely shot and leave a mark. There’s no anti-Pakistan jingoism done. In fact, the film shows how India is also responsible for arresting Pakistanis, many of whom could be innocent like Sarabjit. And the performances are extraordinary.

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was quite okay in Jazbaa but in Sarbjit, she rocks and how! She makes one forget her past performances and does a great job. Her physical transformation looks very authentic and she has worked very hard to essay the old Dalbir in the later part of the movie. Randeep Hooda too is terrific. His physical transformation is very surprising or should I say, shocking! He tries his best to behave like a prisoner who has been jailed for 20 years+. Surely, one of his finest performances ever! Richa Chadha as always gives a fine performance. Surprisingly, she doesn’t have many dialogues in the 2nd half and yet, she makes an impact just through her mere presence! Darshan Kumaar (Awais Sheikh) is likeable and he is the only who provides some light moments in the movie. Ankita Shrivastava (Poonam) and Shivani Saini (Swapan) are okay. Same goes for Late Ram Murti Sharma. Ankur Bhatia (Dalbir’s husband) has a good screen presence. Charanpreet Singh (Sukhpreet’s son-in-law) is fine but has very little screen time.

Music is fine but not something that might last for long. Dard is the best song followed by the energetic Tung Lak. Shail-Pritesh’s background score is impact-generating. Make up is terrific and as close to reality as possible, especially for Randeep. Rajesh Pandey’s editing is quite fast and jerky at places. Utkarshini Vashishtha and Rajesh Beri’s screenplay packs in too much in very less time and is very quick at places. Utkarshini Vashishtha’s dialogues are good and simple. Omung Kumar’s direction is a major reason why the film turns out to be an average product. Even his first film Mary Kom had a fast-paced narrative. But in Mary Kom, he showed a lot of promise but in Sarbjit, he fails to live up to the expectations. Yes, the film is 130 minutes despite the super-fast narrative. Maybe, that’s why he felt that he shouldn’t let the duration exceed as the popular perception is that lengthy films don’t work. This is anyways a myth. After all, good films work, regardless of the duration. Sarbjit could have been 3 hours long and still made an impact if the narrative had flowed organically. Omung in fact was just not right for this film. Here’s hoping he learns his lesson and makes a better film next time.

On the whole, Sarbjit is embellished with extraordinary performances by Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Randeep Hooda. Few scenes leave a mark and the film on the whole compels one to think and feel bad for the families affected on both sides of the border when innocent civilians get picked up on false charges and are forced to rot in jail, sometimes for the rest of their lives. However, the narrative is fast paced and disjointed at times, that takes away the impact. Someone other than Omung Kumar and someone versatile and more experienced could have done proper justice to this tale. An average flick but a must for Aishwarya fans!

My rating - ** ½ out of 5!