Movie: Sardar Ka Grandson

Director: Kaashvi Nair

Star cast: Arjun Kapoor, Neena Gupta, Rakul Preet Singh, John Abraham, Kanwaljit Singh, Aditi Rao Hydari, Soni Razdan, Kumud Mishra, Divya Seth

Rating: Half star

Jasmine Singh

As I attempt to jot down a few rhyming lines, these should be ‘seriously’ considered as an ode to the film, Sardar ka Grandson, especially to Arjun Kapoor’s repeated attempts to act in films!

‘Once bitten twice shy. Twice bitten, still shy. Third time bitten, one wonders, why!!’

The question you'd ask yourself after watching Sardar ka Grandson.

The film will reaffirm your thought that Arjun Kapoor’s films are far from reality, they are whimsical and nonsensical and come from another realm, or let’s ‘dusra gola.’

The entire film actually belongs to the dusra gola (another planet). ‘Unbelievably sorry’ are the words for it.

A 90- something old woman who has been plastered, painted and polished haphazardly by the make-up artists of the film wishes to see her native place, Lahore before she leaves the world.

By the way, this 90-something granny stays with her sons, daughters-in-law, their kids, a dog, a humble non-visible house help and a grandson in Amritsar!

In brief, since this granny cannot visit Lahore (God! I don’t have the lionheart to tell you why), the GRANdson decides to bring granny’s house from Pakistan to Amritsar.

And this is made possible in this film with unrealistic ideas, cringy dialogues and acting, dropped-from-the-sky songs and everything else.

But first, a huge round of applause for some people who have the creativity and farsightedness to ruin the best of things.

Well, if you can waste an actor like Neena Gupta, imagine how damaging this film and director can be?

Only if someone had passed on a real looking glass mirror to Neena Gupta after her make- up. And only if someone had shown a life size looking mirror to Arjun Kapoor, Rakul Preet, Kanwaljit Singh, Soni Razdan, Kumud Mishra and again back to Arjun Kapoor.

If you are wondering that Sardar ka Grandson is a story of building bridges between India and Pakistan, well, the director thought otherwise.

He thinks India and Pakistan are not two separate countries (he really believes in this) because his creation of ‘Pakistan’ in the film Sardar Ka Grandson is not even a pinch different from India.

The dialect is the same, clothes, same, embassies, same, idiosyncrasies, same, romance, same.

Lack of budget or sense, the director didn’t think it was important that while creating Pakistan, he could have at least hired a dialect instructor.

The film Sardar Ka Grandson is actually a joke on the audience because the entire cast including the writer, screenplay writer, director, actors believe with their heart and soul that they can take the covid-19 stricken audience for a ride. In simple words, they thought, ‘kush bhi dikhao, sab chalta hai.’

And as I said, this film belongs to the unknown planet where kuch bhi chalta hai.

Do I need to breakdown that every single character in this film barring John Abraham and Aditi Rao Hydari, have sleepwalked in their acting. The dialogues are cringy and so is the humour, and so is the onscreen romance between Arjun Kapoor and Rakul Preet Singh, and so are the songs and so is the story.

In the end, the second season of The Family Man is on its way!