The Sabarmati Report Cast/Actors: Vikrant Massey as Samar Kumar, Raashii Khanna as Amrita Gill, Riddhi Dogra as Manika Rajpurohit, Barkha Singh (cameo) & others
The Sabarmati Report Director: Dheeraj Sarna
The Sabarmati Report Production Company: Balaji Motion Pictures & Zee Studios
The Sabarmati Report Release Date: 15th November, 2024
The Sabarmati Report Available On: Theatrical Release and (likely to be released on Zee5 OTT Platform)
The Sabarmati Report Released/Available In Languages: Hindi
The Sabarmati Report Runtime: 2h 7m
The Sabarmati Report Critic Review:
The communal bloodshed that tainted Gujarat in 2002 has been told and retold on film, in books, on TV debates.
But there’s been a lid on the Godhra tragedy that preceded the riots, a lid that’s lifted occasionally to put out theories that suppress and mislead more than reveal.
A gas cylinder, a cigarette?
What sparked the fire that roasted 59 kar sevaks including tiny children inside a bogey of the Sabarmati Express outside Godhra station in 2002?
“It was not an accident. The bogey was set on fire,” concludes Manika Rajpurohit (Riddhi Dogra), star anchor of EBT news channel. Hindi journalist Samar Kumar (Vikrant Massey) who has accompanied her to Godhra as cameraman, is therefore shocked when Manika changes the narrative before the camera – her bosses and their political puppeteers want to roast the new CM of Gujarat.
Director Dheeraj Sarna (replacement of Ranjan Chandel) unveils the conspiracy (later ratified by the courts) right at the beginning, revealing the media hand in changing a story according to the political climate.
However, the director (with writers Arjun Bhandegaonkar, Avinash Singh Tomar,
Vipin Agnihotri) takes a circuitous route, often seeming to lose the plot. It’s like, I have a story to tell but I don’t know how to narrate it.
Ditched by his channel and by his English-speaking girlfriend, Samar’s sole companions are dwindling funds and a bottle.Until five years later, when Manika’s unabashed fan Amrita Gill (Raashii Khanna) breathes the same space as her idol and is given the assignment for a follow-up story.
Samar’s unaired footage of the Godhra tragedy brings the man into Amrita’s life.
In the investigation that follows, Amrita-Samar revisit Godhra where he helps demolish the accident theory so fondly sold to the world. They piece together the pre-planned conspiracy where cans of petrol were stored beforehand to target the bogey of kar sevaks.
But three elements stand out in the storytelling. One, there’s calibrated balancing to make sure that no community stands damned. And so, “There are good people on both sides,” says Amrita, with Zainab the lodge-keeper and Meherunissa, a female lawyer, held as symbols of good people. An Indo-Pak cricket match is woven in with Muslims celebrating India’s victory, like that’s the unassailable QED on the community’s patriotism. There’s even ‘Hum Hindustani’ playing as the BG number.
Two, the narration that loses its grip by getting waylaid during the investigation by Amrita-Samar, climaxes with heavy sermonising by Samar in court. The screenplay that fails to thrill also takes some things for granted. Without a buildup, Samar is in the dock in a court. There’s not even an attempt to tell you who dragged him to court or what the case and charges against him are all about. Similarly, you know who burnt the bogey. But what enraged the group that did it? Writing in a passing dialogue like,‘The carnage was so brutal, the 59 included children who were not even born in 1992 when the Babri Masjid was brought down,’ would’ve given some context to the anger of the community.
A third point that stands out is the unabashed batting for Hindi as THE language of Bharat. Along with swipes at elitist English language journalism, Samar’s ‘Hindi, desh ki pehchan’ keeps surfacing.
But hidden among the uninspired writing are moments of wit in the dialogues. Samar says, ‘Ek baar commitment kar li toh…’ about paying his maid’s salary. The politics of turning somebody’s mushkil into a mauka for political mileage or the rise of a political leader in Gujarat that has news channels ruminating over their political choices, have their credibility.
Vikrant Massey triumphs as he skilfully navigates and delivers a troubled Samar. Riddhi Dogra, the star who looks down her nose and tells Amrita not to bother to introduce herself because “I’m not going to remember the name anyway,” is perfectly cast. Raashii Khanna’s fan-to-her-own-person journey is refreshing.
There will be a feeling that the filmmakers succumbed to telling a one-sided version especially with ‘Ram Ram’ and ‘Achutamkeshavam’, providing background sound and a wrap-up closeup of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya.
The Sabarmati Report – Watch Or Not?: Catch it on OTT for it does tell an unexplored side of the Godhra tragedy.
The Sabarmati Report Review Score Rating: 2.5 out of 5 (i.e. 2.5/5)
The Sabarmati Report Official Trailer:
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