‘Sardar Udham’ is about the life of Sardar Udham Singh. He was a revolutionary freedom fighter and is known for the assassination of Michael O’Dwyer in London in 1940. Michael O’Dwyer was the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, British India between 1913 and 1919. Udham Singh took revenge for the famous Jallianwala Bagh massacre, which happened in Amritsar, British India in 1919 under O’Dwyer’s order.
The whole story is about how a freedom fighter, whom we know very less about, but his contribution towards India’s getting independence was no less. The movie starts from Udham Singh (Vicky Kaushal) getting out from jail after completing his sentence and then travels to London to kill Michael O’Dwyer. He walks into a conference meeting, where Michael O’Dwyer is delivering a speech on how Indians can become savagery if the Britishers do not rule them and how this is a white-man’s burden and how the British government controlled the whole country. Udham Singh waits till the speech is over and walks towards the centre of the room and shoots Michael O’Dwyer with a gun and then Michael O’Dwyer falls flat on floor and dies on spot.
The movie shows us how Udham Singh waits for two decades (20 years) for this assassination and finally he accomplished his vow. 20 years ago, Udham Singh has witnessed the famous Jallianwala Bagh massacre, where Michael O’Dwyer was the former Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, British India at that time and he had ordered to free fire on hundreds of peaceful Indians, which included men, women and children. More than twenty thousand soldiers were appointed for the mass killing.
After the assassination of Michael O’Dwyer, Udham Singh gets arrested and he was questioned by detectives of British government and he explains about the massacre, which shows us a flashback of the incident and how he vowed to kill O’Dwyer and kept waiting for two decades.
Shoojit Sircar’s direction is very well-crafted. We have seen his outstanding direction before too in ‘Vicky Donor’ (2012), ‘Madras Cafe’ (2013), ‘Piku’ (2015) and ‘October’ (2018) and now ‘Sardar Udham’ is a masterpiece. He did not make the storyline anywhere boring or extra and he was very cautious about every detail and every Indian’s emotion. Screenwriters Shubhendu Bhattacharya and Ritesh Shah have sincerely stick to the facts and don’t not overdo it.
Coming to Vicky Kaushal, he has totally done justice to the role of Udham Singh. His way of showing emotions for his assassinated countrymen, his dialogue delivery, his calm wait for 20 years, his dedication towards his revenge, he tackles all so confidently that one can literally feel the pain and anger of the massacre. On the other hand, Amol Parashar played the role of Bhagat Singh and Banita Sandhu played the role of Shruti Tiwari, one of the women died in the massacre, are good enough but not up to the mark.
Overall, ‘Sardar Udham’ is a true patriotic film we have seen after a long time. Needless to say, director Shoojit Sircar has achieved the main goal to make the audience feel the true essence of freedom.
‘Sardar Udham’ is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
Rating: 4/5
