Bharat Movie Review: Good Plot With A Flawed Screenplay

Producers- Atul Agnihotri and Bhushan Kumar

Director- Ali Abbas Zafar

Star Cast- Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif, Sunil Grover, Disha Patani, Jackie Shroff, Sonali Kulkarni, Aasif Shaikh, Kumud Mishra and Nora Fatehi

Genre- Social

Rating- **1/2

Jyothi Venkatesh

Bharat is a remake of the 2014 South Korean movie, Ode to My Father. It is different from the other conventional movies starring Salman Khan in the sense that he has given a very restrained performance as the responsible son Bharat who sets out to carry out the familial duties over the course of several decades as his father (Jackie Shroff) requests him before they get separated during the Indo-Pak partition in 1947 as a child. From 1947 to 2010, the narrative traverses a period of over six decades and you get to see Bharat taking up risky and odd jobs to make ends meet and also travel to different parts to discover and reunite with his lost sister, played by Tabu in a cameo effectively.

While Salman Khan is in full form and in his elements, the others lend him excellent support be it Sunil Grover who is there in almost every frame as Vilayti with him as his childhood friend or Sonali Kulkarni who plays his mother though she has very few scenes for her. The special surprise in the film is Katrina Kaif who appears as Madam Sirji, who recruits Bharat to a job overseas. Disha Patani has a short and sweet role and is not able to leave any impact whatsoever.

Though the film Bharat is well-intentioned, entertaining and doesn’t succumb to the trappings of commercial potboilers, director Ali Abbas Zafar fails to come up with a crisper version and the film lingers on and on and at times even tests your patience if you are not a Salman Khan fan with its infinite number of songs which creep in and out without any logic whatsoever. The inclusion of the national anthem in the film a la Dangal was not at all necessary as it only serves as an impediment to the story at the wrong time. Also the transformation of the perennially drinking uncle of Salman Khan- Kumud Mishra to an understanding uncle has not been treated effectively

The director rises above the script in terms of his direction only towards the climax though half way through you are forced to see him incorporating silly comedy sequence s like the encounter with the pirates in the ship  when Salman and Sunil Grover ward them off by singing parodies go Amitabh Bachchan’s songs. Also there was no need to show Kumud played by Katrina Kaif insisting on a live in without marriage with Salman Khan considering the time was not open to such live in options.

On the flip side,  not only is the music by Vishal- Shekhar below merit but also there are far too many characters in the film to confuse you and have no relevance at all to the plot. This film, in spite of a flawed screenplay by the director himself, happens to be Salman and Ali’s third collaboration after their previous blockbusters Sultan and Tiger Zinda Hai and  is a perfect Eid gift to all those innumerable fans of Salman Khan

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Tags: Bollywood, Bollywood News, Bollywood Updates, Television, Telly News, Bharat, Movie Review, Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif, Sunil Grover, Disha Patani, Jackie Shroff, Sonali Kulkarni, Aasif Shaikh, Kumud Mishra, Nora Fatehi