Sardaar Mahommad is an overlong, somewhat slapdash biopic set in late-1960's India, based upon a true story. A young man discovers that his high-caste parents are adoptive, that most of his biological family was massacred during the Partition of India in 1947, and that his biological mother may still be alive and living in Pakistan. The young man then experiences a crisis of identity, leading to a search for his biological mother.
The core of this film is a story worth telling. Unfortunately, the film makers clearly have little understanding of how to tell such a story. The script presents a series of random events which barely connect and feel tedious, that tell very little about the characters, and that rely upon rather cheap theatrics and excessive emotional outpourings to make you care about characters who are otherwise superficial and one-dimensional. The first half of the film plays as a rollicking, rather unfunny comedy; the second half descends into tear-soaked, sentimental effusions which permeate every encounter, regardless of whether the tears make sense or not.
The period clothing and details wrap you in a polyester swirl of colors and patterns which become quite garish under the highly colorful lighting schemes which feature, for no discernible reason, a large number of aqua color filters.
The musical numbers are slow to emerge in this picture, strangely enough, but once they do begin, the dancing and overall stagecraft are questionable; the main actor is clearly not a skilled dancer. I enjoyed the songs in a campy sort of way, but my friend Dee thought they were boring. In my opinion, however, the songs were the best part of the movie.
I think the hardest thing to take was the lethargic pace of the film combined with the overlong, overacted scenes of endless sobbing which dominated the film's narrative. I mean, the crying was so excessive that it made American soap operas seem restrained and naturalistic by comparison. And why were they crying so much? Apparently, they had some sort of foreknowledge (divined from God?) of the end of the script, there could be no other explanation. The sobbing and overacting were so extreme that I actually found it all quite hilarious... when I wasn't falling asleep from boredom.
Most of the Bollywood films that play in the United States are exceptional examples of their genre; Americans don't tend to be subjected to the run-of-the-mill features which must dominate the industry. This piece of period claptrap was clearly an exception. It was memorably bad. I won't spoil the ending for you, but it could have been a parody, it was so ridiculously tasteless, nonsensical and drawn out. I can't recommend this piece of expensive trash because it was mostly deathly dull, but, if you do decide to subject yourself to it, be prepared... and make sure you eat before you go; they talk about food so much in the movie, it makes you hungry.
