Sardar Udham
Inaccuracy is the big let-down
On the eve of Independence Day, I decided to watch the widely acclaimed film, “Sardar Udham”. I had been to Jallianwala Bagh last month and I wish I had more time to spare at the place if not for the pouring incessant rain.
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Sadly in an attempt to also market the film and win an audience Shoojit Sircar has resorted to the same old trick of over-dramatization and inaccuracies, some going over the top. You wonder when so much of research (20 years according to one report) is being done why can’t the makers of the film just refer to Wikipedia for information. The movie has so much fluff and unwanted stuff that it lets the biopic down. The most important fact is that Udham Singh was at the venue serving water to the people who had assembled at Jallianwala Bagh. He survived the shooting which is also mentioned on his page on Wikipedia. On the page on the massacre it is reported that Udham was injured in the shooting. However the movie does not show him at the venue. He is outside the venue and then in an overly-extended-dramatization of the aftermath of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, it is shown how he transports and rescues several of the wounded and the dying. The most absurd of all the stories was Udham ending up working for Michael O’Dwyer, at the latter’s home in the UK and accompanying Dwyer on hunting expeditions after initially posing as a salesman.
During his days at Amritsar, Udham is shown to have a love-interest and that too with a girl who cannot speak. Thank God they didn’t throw in a love-duet-number! Wikipedia says Udham was married to a Mexican-American and with whom he had two children. The page on Wiki also says that Udham’s relatives admitted he also had an English wife. In fact when he entered Caxton Hall where he assassinated Dwyer, it says he used his wife’s ticket. Nothing of this kind can be found in the movie. I also wonder why Bhaghat Singh is shown as some free-spirited character full of humour and talkative in nature.
Will give some points to the way English actors (most of them) have been used and directed in this film. Some points also go out for the VFX for the scenes shot of the UK in the early 1900’s.
