It´s arguably the biggest weekend this year for Bollywood. Last year at this time we were eagerly awaiting the release of two mega budget period films. While Gadar caused havoc all across the nation, Lagaan went on to compete at an international level. Well hopefully we can see two more such success stories this weekend when both big Bhagat Singh films clash at the box office. The story of Shaheed Bhagat Singh has been told a few times before on the Indian cinema screens, but for those of us who have little to no knowledge at all, well Bollywood is here to help. There is no doubt that this is one courageous story which must be re-told to today´s generation, and for generations to come. It is an important part of India´s history, and a tale which must stay fresh in our minds. Today Bobby Deol and Sunny Deol join forces to tell us that story in the new film 23rd March 1931 Shaheed.

March 23rd 1931 Shaheed tells the story of the freedom fighter through a collection of events. The story starts with our hero at a young age where his homeland has been taken away from him and his people by the British. Growing up Bhagat Singh is witness to many atrocities that his innocent mind struggles to reason with. When his uncle Ajit is forced to leave the country and flee for his life, Bhagat begins to understand what his destiny is. However it´s incidents such as the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre and the gruesome capture and death penalty bestowed upon a family friend which ignites a fire in his heart. Bhagat Singh grows into a determined freedom fighter who leaves his family to join Chandrashekar Azad, and his colleagues, to fight the British rule. After his close family friend and political leader, Lala Lajpat Rai, is beaten and killed during protests, Bhagat Singh and his fellow freedom fighters take matters into their own hands. With the assistance of Sukhdev and Rajguru, amongst others, Bhagat successfully kills one of the police officers who beat Lala. From there on in, Bhagat undergoes a physical transformation and is hiding from the police to save his life and continue fighting for his country. Bhagat, in an Angrez gentleman´s getup, sneaks into the Central Assembly with his friend Batukeshwar Dutt and chucks bombs to cause a commotion while showering the assembly with pamphlets. This leads to his arrest and in jail he leads as much of a revolution as he did in the outside world. He goes on a hunger strike so that his fellow inmates could have adequate living conditions amongst other things while he is in jail.. Sadly, Bhagat is executed a day earlier than scheduled, cutting his courageous life short at 23, and leaving a nation reeling.

The film is full of some positives and an equal number of negatives. On the positive side are performances. Amrita Singh definitely walks away with the honors for best performance here. Her eyes speak volumes, and she lends a lot of maturity to a role that one may think she was miscast for. The scene where she meets Bhagat for the last time is heartbreaking. Amrita has incorporated many authentic mannerisms, and gestures to bring her character to life. Her portrayal of Bhagat Singh´s mother is excellent. Bobby Deol as Bhagat Singh does an adequate job, although in some scenes he looks a little uncomfortable, overall he gives a good performance. The best thing about Bobby is the fact that he almost looks exactly like the real life Bhagat Singh. While he does get a little loud in the courtroom scenes, Bobby is trying his best to tap his talent and it shows. Sunny Deol is limited in his role. While his entrance had the audience hooting and hollering, his exit scene is much too glorified and unnecessarily long. One thing he must really work on is keeping his voice down when delivering certain dialogues. Yelling calls for a place and time, Sunny Deol thinks it´s always. His performance is commendable, but not amongst his greatest. Of the supporting cast, Rahul Dev (as Sukhdev) and Vicky Ahuja (as Rajguru) don´t really get as much screen time as one would expect. Both of them do justice to their small roles and stand out in certain scenes, but leave no lasting impression due to bad characterization. Divya Dutta and Akshay Anand too fall in the same category except they have less lines. Suresh Oberoi as the jailer does a good job. His transformation is realistic. Aishwariya Rai gets one song, and she takes full advantage of it. Looking beautiful as ever, she comes and goes as a breath of fresh air and the only relief in the film.

Another plus point is definitely the camerawork by Thiru. He has captured the 1920´s look very well on screen. While the cinematography is amazing, one has to ask, did the technical team of this film really think we wouldn´t notice the flimsy model version of Lahore? It´s really tacky. The dialogues by Sanjay Masoom are powerful in some parts and average in others. Some of the speeches delivered (or rather yelled) have been well written and were received with shouts of encouragement from the audience. Surinder Sodhi´s background music is average and Simple Kapadia´s outfits only lend more authenticity to the movie making it look better. Tinu Verma does a good job with the action sequences although the chase scene is a little long. As for the music, Mera Rang De had audiences whistling every time it came on. The opening boliyan in the Pagdi Sambhal number drove audiences mad with excitement. Jogiya Ve comes to life onscreen, thanks to Aishwariya and Saroj Khan´s dance steps. And Deshnu Challo leaves a big impact. The rest of the numbers sound almost as loud as Sunny. Anand Raaj Anand´s music is effective.

However the film is also abound with some very bad moments. Guddu Dhanoa does a decent job in directing, but it´s far from perfect. It may not be Guddu´s fault, he´s a commercial director who made successes like Ziddi and Bichhoo, if you are expecting a masterpiece from him you have to be kidding. However, he has a good handle on some of the scenes. He throws in a lot of emotion, and many of the scenes stand out in this film. The scene where Jaigopal is sitting in the jail listening to all the screams is well executed. Bhagat Singh´s last meeting with his parents will surely stay with you after the movie finishes. The Jallianwalla Bagh massacre is also well depicted. However the film would have been much better had the writer Sutanu Gupta put more research into his script. While most of the incidents are real, they are put together in such a way that we are really only offered a glimpse into portions of Bhagat Singh´s life. Sutanu has taken different incidents from different time periods and written them into the script, so Bhagat Singh does a lot of rebelling, but it leaves no impact because once an incident ends, there is no aftermath to leave an impression, most of the time we move to the next incident. As a result the script seems to be a mishmash of Bhagat´s life, we´re not watching a story on his life, we´re just getting bits and pieces of it. Sutanu seems to have written the script in order to showcase the Deol´s together. It does glorify the brothers, but it sacrifices the proper storytelling of the martyr´s life. Taking a liberty like that is not a safe thing to do. Sunny Deol´s final scene is way too overdone. Think back to Gadar when the whole Pakistani Army went running from Sunny. Here he takes on the British police force with one revolver. Although we know the outcome, there is no excuse for showing them all run away or showing Azad kill an officer without even looking. The editing department sure fell asleep on this one. The movie stretches out forever and there are definitely some scenes which could have been cut. Azad´s showdown, the chase after Saunders is killed and some of the jail scenes could have been cut out. Guddu has taken too many cinematic liberties, and in the end it works against the final product.

So what´s the verdict on this version of Bhagat Singh´s story? Well it´s definitely entertaining. The Deol´s know what Indian audiences want, and they give it to them. It´s overly exaggerated in parts, much too commercialized at points, and under developed. But thanks to great performances, good camerawork, decent directing the film is worth the watch. Guddu Dhanoa has made a better film than any of his previous works, there are plenty of great scenes in the film, even if they have been scattered amongst some less impressive ones. This may not be the epic you were expecting, but it is entertainment and it will have you shedding a tear or two......