Director: Aashish Mall
Cast: Sahidur Rahaman, Subrat Dutta, Shashi Bhushan, Nalneesh Neel
Narration: Ajay Devgn
Where to watch: In theatres
Rating: 3 stars
These days, ‘AI’ (Artificial Intelligence) has become the go-to buzzword for many filmmakers. This week’s release Shatak infuses the AI technology into its storytelling. But whether it is good enough for the film to score a century at the box office is what we will be finding out.
The film starts off with the introduction of a young and raring to go Keshav Baliram Hedgewar. The news about his razor-sharp intellectual thinking makes many take notice of this child prodigy. After the unfortunate death of Keshav’s parents, Balakrishna Shivram Moonje (B.S. Munje) takes care of the young Keshav and sends him to the National Medical College of Calcutta for studies, where he emerges as a doctor.
This is then followed by the sequence of historic events which becomes instrumental in changing the course of history and also Keshav’s ‘his-story’! Seeing and sensing the need of the hour, Keshav decides to start off with a self-reliant, selfless organization named Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
With each passing day, the RSS and its ideologies not just start making progress, but also inspire many to join. Amid all this, in 1936, a fierce lady named Laxmibai Kelkar from Wardha volunteers to start Rashtra Sevika Samiti, a women's organisation that parallels the RSS.
Years pass by. Eventually, old age forces the ultra-dynamic Keshav to slow down his activities physically. That’s when Madhav Sadashivrao Golwalkar, aka Guruji, steps forward as the man in command to keep the legacy flag of RSS flying high. Does it turn out to be a smooth path for him and the ‘swayamsevaks’, or do they face an uphill task, is what forms the rest of the film.
Actors' Performance
All the characters … (screentime notwithstanding) shine under the sun. A big shout-out to the cast, including Sahidur Rahaman, Subrat Dutta, Shashi Bhushan, Nalneesh Neel and others. Given the film’s stature, it becomes extremely tough to single out any one person as the solo shining star. All the actors (real and AI) walk that extra mile to help the film reach the crescendo of patriotism.
Direction, Music and Aesthetics
Hats off to the film’s director, Aashish Mall, for having delivered a film like Shatak that serves as a fitting ode to the centurion celebration of RSS. Aashish’s direction is in total sync with the film’s narrative (Nitin Sawant, Rohit Gehlot, Utsav Dan) and Anil Dhanpat Agarwal’s conceptualization. There are, however, places where the lip sync does not match the dialogue delivery. But, overall, a pat-worthy attempt.
The film’s dialogues could have been a bit more hard-hitting. A film of this premise needs to have its dialogues that should invoke the patriotic fervour in the hearts and minds of the audience. The film, however, lies low in this department.
The film’s editing (Chin2 Singh) is decent. However, the film’s second half does feel the need for a few scenes to be altered.
Even though the film does not have any recall worthy tracks, its music (Sunny-Inder, Sushant Shankar, Anuj Garg, Vivek Garg) is decent and is in sync with the narrative… just like its background music (Monty Sharma).
A special mention to Ajay Devgn for the soulful narration as well as Prashant Parab for his outstanding contribution in the art direction of the film.
FPJ Verdict
While the film Shatak harbours heavily on the usage of AI (Artificial Intelligence), it does invoke the patriotism in the viewers about AI (Apna India). Shatak surely serves as an eye-opener for all the Gen Zs, Gen Alphas and even Gen Betas. In simple words, it's a film for all generations.
Do watch this film to get a refresher course in history.
