3 Stars (out of 4)
Watch Subedaar on Amazon Prime
Filmmaker Suresh Triveni’s latest movie Subedaar is so tense it’s almost unbearable at times. In terms of achieving the intended tone, it’s an undeniable success. However, that single tone makes it hard to maintain the story momentum.
The first few moments of Subedaar are light-hearted misdirection. Elementary school boys Bablu and Mannu ponder how people in airplanes go to the bathroom and come up with a funny answer. But as the cheerful boys start to run between the heavy machinery dredging sand from the local river, the music becomes ominous. The boys jump in the water. Mannu doesn’t resurface.
He’s not the first kid to drown in the river as a result of industrial mismanagement. The dredgers are controlled by gangster Babli Didi (Mona Singh). She’s currently imprisoned awaiting trial for murder, but her shadow hangs over the town. Mannu’s uncle demands justice, so Babli Didi’s reckless half-brother, Prince (Aditya Rawal), kills him.
Arjun Maurya (Anil Kapoor) is new to this city governed by fear. He recently retired from the military, where he achieved the rank of Subedaar (a junior commissioned officer). His beloved wife just died, and he’s trying to form a relationship with his college-aged daughter Shyama (Radhika Madan). He hardly knows her because his career kept him away from home for most of her life.
The transition from highly organized military life to civilian chaos is unnerving for Arjun. He looks like he’s barely holding it together even while trying to do something ordinary, like closing his wife’s bank account. The frazzled bank clerk is so self-focused that he doesn’t register Arjun’s taut expression and the danger that lurks behind it.
The bank offers an early lesson in how the town operates. No one within the structures of power will help. They only protect themselves, particularly when Babli Didi and Prince are concerned. The mantra of the police chief is: “See very little, and forget everything.”
Prince is dangerous because he insists on controlling every interaction, enjoys humiliating people, and resorts to violence fast — and he never faces negative consequences for his brutal behavior. When Arjun refuses to be belittled by Prince and his cronies, it makes the former soldier a target. Arjun’s best friend Prabhakar (Saurabh Shukla) urges him to apologize and move on, but Arjun’s pride won’t allow him to do so.
At the same time, Shyama exposes one of her fellow students for his lewd behavior and is threatened with retaliation. She doesn’t tell her father about this, and he doesn’t tell her about Prince. When goons lurk outside the house at night or throw things at their home in the morning, father and daughter both assume they are the intended target. They’re both right, just at different times of day.
Though not always the main focus of the story, the relationship between Arjun and Shyama is the film’s most compelling. She has every reason to be angry with him, and he feels plenty of guilt mixed with his grief over his wife’s death (Khushbu Sundar plays Arjun’s wife Sudha in some sweet flashbacks). He’s doing the best he can to act like a parent to Shyama, but there’s no quick fix.
Troubled relationships between parents and children featured in Triveni’s two previous directorials as well: 2017’s Tumhari Sulu and 2022’s Jalsa. What makes the storylines work in each film is tremendous acting. Subedaar might be Triveni’s best yet, in that regard.
Kapoor is in top form as Arjun, trying to hold back the sea of emotions inside him. Madan shows us that Shyama’s hostility comes from a place of great pain. Both Kapoor and Madan are very good in their action scenes. Shukla’s Prabhakar says volumes with a single look, and Singh steals every scene she’s in.
Rawal is utterly loathsome as Prince, which is just what the role calls for. He’s particularly good at invading people’s personal space, because in his mind, it’s all his space. His presence is oppressive because we know there are no good guys coming to the rescue.
That said, a little goes a long way with Prince, especially since he doesn’t change or evolve. The only subplot to offset Prince’s lopsided feud with Arjun is Shyama’s own struggle against stronger opponents, so the experience of watching Subedaar becomes emotionally fatiguing over time. It’s a classic case where chopping twenty minutes from the runtime would actually make things more impactful.
Triveni is improving as a director with each movie. Subedaar is another step in the right direction, with clearer character motivations than in previous films. I’m happy to see it.
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