Review:Sarhad Paar

Sarhad Paar (drama)

Cast: Sanjay Dutt, Tabu, Mahima Chaudhary

Direction: Raman Kumar

The best thing about the film is its politics. For the first time, perhaps, a Hindi film actually mirrors the changing political sentiment between India and Pakistan and talks of a dosti between the two countries.

One where both try to battle the bad guys together, without blaming each other. And the bad guys? Osama-like terrorists, who according to the protagonists have neither religion nor country. Shabash ! Nice to see a coming-of-age in desh-bhakt Bollywood cinema.

Now if that maturity had been reflected in the structure of the film too, Sarhad Paar might have been landmark cinema. But there's a strange mothballed feel to the film, even though it boasts of two fine actors like Tabu and Sanjay Dutt playing the Bharatiya Braveheart couple.

Sanjay Dutt, the friendly sardar Kaptaan crosses the border one night, chasing the terrorists. Another friendly soul, a Pak army guy, sends him back to India in a nice Indo-Pak dosti gesture. The only hitch here is that our brave soldier has suffered a memory loss and can't remember his encounter with the terrorist (Rahul Dev).

Until the terrorist strikes again... Now that desh-bhakti has taken on a new dimension, post- Rang De Basanti , these border-war films don't actually hold attention anymore. Time to tackle the rot within, rather than bother about the threat from outside...Thus spake the Masti Ki Patshala boys!

SOURCE : THE TIMES OF INDIA