Subedaar Review {2.5/5} & Review Rating

Star Cast: Anil Kapoor, Radhikka Madan

Director: Suresh Triveni

Subedaar Movie Review Synopsis:
SUBEDAAR is the story of an upright man in trouble. Arjun Maurya (Anil Kapoor), a recently retired Subedaar, returns to his hometown after the death of his wife Sudha (Kushboo Sundar), who passed away in a road accident a few months ago. He now lives with his daughter Shyama (Radhikka Madan). At the insistence of his friend, Prabhakar (Saurabh Shukla), he takes up the job of the driver for Shashikant aka Prince (Aditya Rawal). He runs the illegal sand mafia in the region under the leadership of his sister, Babli Didi (Mona Singh), currently in prison. Both are quite dreaded in the region. Arjun feels disgusted by the way Prince behaves with him and others around him and quits in a day. The next day, Arjun and Prince get into an altercation over parking. Matters spiral when Prince vandalizes Arjun’s new car, one that his late wife had booked, and a furious Arjun beats him up and publicly forces him to clean the vehicle. As expected, Prince swears revenge. Hours later, Prince realizes he accidentally left his prized gun, linked to his late father, inside Arjun’s car. Meanwhile, Shyama locks horns with her college classmate Ranveer (Vikram Pratap) over the obscene videos he has been sending her. What happens next forms the rest of the film.

Subedaar Movie Story Review:
Suresh Triveni and Prajwal Chandrashekar’s story is on the lines of JOHN WICK and has potential. Suresh Triveni and Prajwal Chandrashekar’s screenplay is fine initially, but then it goes all over the place. Suresh Triveni, Saurabh Dwivedi and Prajwal Chandrashekar’s dialogues add to the drama and also humour. The scene where the four college students introduce themselves as Ranveer, Ranbir, Kaushal and Rajpal is hilarious.

Suresh Triveni’s direction is okay. To give credit where it’s due, the dusty small-town feel comes alive authentically. The chapter-wise narration adds a nice touch and the first half is captivating. The breakdown in communication between Arjun and Shyama comes through nicely in the scene where they ask each other about their day, while quietly hiding the action-packed incidents they’ve just been through. The scene where Arjun bashes up Prince and forces him to clean his car is too good. If this were a theatrical film, it would have led to applause.

However, the film soon goes downhill. Things start happening at random. It’s bewildering how on earth Prince left his gun in Arjun’s car, that too below the passenger seat next to that of the driver. Shyama’s track of her tiff with the classmate is forced and the way her track is integrated with the principal plot is very unconvincing. Also, Shyama resides in a small town where Prince is the biggest gangster. Ideally, in such a situation, the video of Prince being assaulted by her father would have gone viral and would have come to her notice. However, she has absolutely no idea about it. The climax developments are laughable. Suddenly, Prince and Babli Didi begin to seem very incompetent, especially in what happens to them in the end. The very final scene gives an indication of a sequel, but it made no sense.

Subedaar – Official Trailer | Anil Kapoor, Radhikka Madan, Aditya Rawal, Mona Singh, Saurabh Shukla

Subedaar Movie Review Performances:
The performances save the day to a great extent. Anil Kapoor is damn good in the angry avatar and impresses in the action and confrontational scenes. However, in a few moments, his character comes across as needlessly enraged, and that could have been avoided. Aditya Rawal, who rocked the show with DALDAL, does even better in SUBEDAAR. He gets into the skin of the character and proves that he’s a talent to watch out for. Radhikka Madan puts her best foot forward, but is let down by the writing. The same goes for Mona Singh – she delivers a strong performance, but her character doesn’t get the weight it deserves, especially towards the end. Saurabh Shukla and Faisal Malik (Softy) are terrific in supporting roles. Kushboo Sundar is lovely as always, but this is the second time, after VANVAAS [2024], where she played the deceased wife of the protagonist, appearing only in flashbacks. Here’s hoping we get to see her in different kinds of author-backed roles as well. Vikram Pratap, Snehlata Siddharth (Ranju), Aditya Kashyap (Bablu) and Arjun Singh Rajput (Mannu) are decent. Sada Yadav (Tripathi; bank staffperson) and Vinod Goswami (Avdesh; lawyer) are aptly cast. Manav Kaul doesn’t get much scope as the item boy. Nana Patekar (Nana Waghmare) is massy in a cameo.

Subedaar movie music and other technical aspects:
Songs are okay. ‘Balam Subedaar’ and ‘Lalla’ are novel and manage to register to some extent. ‘Subedaar Theme’ is catchy. ‘Chilam Tambaku’ goes unnoticed. Rohan Vinayak Music’s background score adds to the mass appeal.

Ayan Saxena’s cinematography is splendid, especially in the highway chase scenes. Vikram Dahiya’s action enhances the entertainment quotient. Kshitij Kankaria’s costumes for Anil Kapoor and Shyamli Arora’s costumes for the other actors are stylish yet realistic. Ajay H Chodankar, Vipin Kumar’s production design is authentic. Shivkumar V Panicker’s editing is decent and too quick in some scenes.

Subedaar Movie Review Conclusion:
On the whole, SUBEDAAR rides on Anil Kapoor’s power-packed, whistle-worthy performance and a massy first half. However, the impact is significantly diluted by a weak second half and a disappointing climax.