Movie Review:Shaurya

A story of humanity and attitudinal differences causing social destruction, Shaurya scores well in the execution department.

Captain Javed Sheikh(Deepak Dobriyal) shoots Major Virender Rathore, his senior officer in full consciousness during a search operation. He’s charged with treason and killing a fellow officer and put under trial for Court Martial. Two friends, army lawyers, Major Siddhant Chowdhary(Rahul Bose) and Major Aakash Kapoor(Jaaved Jaaferi) are pitched against each other in the court room. A journalist Kavya Shastri(Minissha Lamba) is investigating the case to get to the bottom of the pit.

Talking about performances, Rahul Bose leads from the word ‘GO’. He’s superb in his character before the interval and after the interval(see it to understand what I mean). His confrontation scenes in the court room are terrific. Kay Kay Menon is amazing as Brigadier Pratap…a man with an extreme jingoistic attitude. His outburst in the court room in the climax is amazing. Jaaved Jaaferi is good in his part, though half way through the film his character gets relegated to the backseat. Deepak Dobriyal doesn’t have may lines to say but his portrayal of Javed Sheikh, an earnest officer who has high moral standards is very good. Minissha Lamba is alright. Her role was pretty small and could’ve been enacted by any other actress. Amrita Rao and Pawan Malhotra are wasted.

Writing for the film has not been up to the mark in the first half…….the first half spends too much time on developing Rahul Bose’s character….which means the true story gets barely any attention. The first accelerator, which pushes the story ahead comes a very late 55 minutes into the narrative. Editing could’ve helped here definitely. Having said that, the second half is a miraculous effort. The story moves fast, grips your attention, Rahul’s character graph is developed at a feverish pace and the climax sequence is stunning.

Both the songs in the film are useless…….they do nothing but slacken the pace of the film and waste screen time.

Good Scenes:
1)The coffee table conversation between Rahul Bose and Kay Kay.
2)The flashback sequence when Rahul learns the truth of the incident.
3)The climax.

By and large Shaurya is not a mass appeal film. A select section of the audience with a liberal attitude and multiple perspectives of vision would appreciate Samar Khan’s effort. A recommendation for a single watch for lovers of humanist cinema.