Subedaar movie review: Anil Kapoor leads gritty throwback to Bollywood’s heroic thrillers

Subedaar Arjun Maurya (Kapoor) returns to his modest home in a Madhya Pradesh town, to find his college-going daughter Shyama (Radhika Madan) still devastated at the loss of her mother (Khubu Sundar). His troubles are compounded by a corrupt, apathetic city council dragging its feet on paperwork connected to the death: the straight-arrow, honest soldier has no idea that the man across the desk is clearly angling for a bribe.

The malaise that hangs over the town wafts in from the mud stirred by the sand mafia, controlled by Babli Didi (Mona Singh) and Prince (Aditya Raval): rampant illegal mining means an army of goons, a complicit ‘prashashan’, and the ordinary man struggling to survive.

The tropes are right there, but the treatment freshens them. Maurya doesn’t show his hand–and his impressive handiwork– till the point he is pushed against a wall, with nowhere left to go, and then he breaks free. You know that a middle-aged fauji shouldn’t realistically be one up on a younger, fitter bunch, but Kapoor, as agile as he used to be, despite his weathered face, flattening them all, one by one, makes you believe. And cheer.

That’s because he makes you care for his character, who was at the border, fighting the desh-ke-dushman, while his presence—or rather, lack of it– at his own home made the difference between life and death. Saurabh Shukla plays the hero’s best friend, as a fellow ‘sipahi’ then, and a compatriot now: jokey lines are thrown in, and we accept them because the jugalbandi between the two lands more than it doesn’t; these two are given more space than the relentlessly grim subedaar and his flirtatious ‘achaar-making’ missus (Khushbu Sundar).

The thread involving Shyama’s strong-girl-fighting-her-own battles does have moments, but it isn’t all the way believable. Madan’s delivery isn’t all smooth either, the dialect being chewed rather than spoken. But again, given the kind of film it is– brave hero vs the very bad guys– you take it in your stride. Speaking of baddies, Mona Singh as the fearsome Badi Didi isn’t as scary as she thinks she is, even if Aditya Rawal makes up for her soft moments with his vicious Prince, a hark-back to the time when villains used to be properly, irredeemably, villainous. The one who stands out is Panchayat man Faisal Malik as the go-between Didi and Prince, with an ace up his sleeve, who ends up owning the only real surprise in the proceedings.

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The locations – a small dusty town with its mean streets, and denuded waterworks that have turned into death-traps – are striking. The opening sequence, which sets the tone, is as impactful as anything I’ve seen recently. The Wild West Chambal is a strong vibe, as are the lines which use ‘khadi boli’, even though you hear some characters fumble. But the narrative dips with the insistence on giving Kapoor sequences in which he shows his physical prowess There’s also the use of chapters, describing what is about to unfold, which break the flow: what’s the point?

But none of these take away from Kapoor, who remains the last man standing: the subedaar is still a nayak.

Subedaar movie cast: Anil Kapoor, Saurabh Shukla, Aditya Raval, Faisal Malik, Mona Singh, Radhika Madan, Khushbu Sundar
Subedaar movie director: Suresh Triveni
Subedaar movie rating: 2.5 stars