After a 4-year long hiatus, Ranbir Kapoor returns to the big screen with Shamshera, a period drama that is set against the backdrop of India during the British Raj.
Ranbir Kapoor began his break with the spectacular acting he gave in Sanju significantly enhancing the spectrum within which the artist can perform.
With a break that long, fans were anticipating a bigger role with a better performance. Brahmastra’s trailer further magnified their expectations however Shamshera does not fulfill many of those.
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Marking the first dual role of Ranbir Kapoor, Shamshera is a story of dacoits with Shamshera leading the down-trodden tribal group who reside among mountains and trenches.
Set in the 1800s, Shamshera’s tribe is suppressed and humiliated by a police officer, Shudh Singh, played by Sanjay Dutt.
During the 19th Century, when most of the tribal communities were classified as criminals, Shamshera was compelled to sign a pact with the British officials on the advice of Shudh which made his entire community a slave of the Raj.
To break his tribe free from the oppression of this rule, he plans a rebellion that ends with his death.
Moving twenty-five years forward, we are introduced to Shamshera’s son Bali, also played by Ranbir Kapoor, who dreams of becoming a police officer, the very profession that killed his father during that period.
Unaware of the circumstances of the past, he has a strained relationship with his people however, it does not take long for him to realize the truth.
Hence, in a long chain of cliched events, Bali symbolically becomes Shamshera and fights both Shudh Singh and the British Raj. Along the way, to make the plot more mediocre, he falls in love with Sona, played by Vaani Kapoor, and before reaching the climax he is supposed to become a father.
If you are going to make a film around dacoits with a face of a leader at the front, you need to weave a storyline that is plausible and seems logical.
In several scenes such as Sanjay Dutt killing the army with a few guns and CGI crows appearing out of nowhere every time Bali is in trouble, Shamshera becomes a distant approach that does not allow the audience to be engaged and root for the protagonist.
The film was more focused on the technical front which led to a lack of emotional development of the characters which is extremely important when you are making a movie of this genre.
Nevertheless, Ranbir Kapoor manages to shine in his role delivering dialogues and a remarkable performance which somewhat enhanced the movie.
Apart from it, various symbolic and aural metaphors are augmented making it more entertaining. The use of the crow as a symbol of shifting of the soul is one such example. However, a single element is not enough to carry the entire movie.
The movie was also called out for its historical inaccuracies and it is a fact that even after developing a fictional account of the past, it is better to add a real background.
Shamshera reminded us of Thugs of Hindustan which had an almost similar setting with a stellar cast but ended up being a mediocre film.
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