Media Magick

Patriotic films have managed to do well at the box office, recently last year Parwaaz hai Junoon released and it fared quite well at the box office, in fact in some cinemas it is still playing, which obviously concludes that audience likes this genre. Sherdil is the recently released and was in discussion for quite some time because of multiples reasons, patriotic attempt being the top ones. Sherdil is Azfar Jaffri’s 4^th film after Siyaah, Janaan and Parchi. The film is written by Nomaan Khan and features Mikaal Zulfiqar, Hassan Niazi, Armeena Rana Khan, Sabeeka Imam and Samina Ahmed in pivotal characters. Let’s see what this film offers to its viewers.

Trailer Review Sherdil

The story of Sherdil revolves around Haris (Mikaal Zulfiqar) who is the grandson of a martyred pilot and has only one dream that is to serve his country but his father a media tycoon seems to oppose it on every given stance. The story majorly revolves around how Haris becomes a fighter pilot and keeps his motherland on priority. There’s a romantic angle in the film which to be honest is the weakest part in terms of conceptualization, treatment and writing. Haris is sent abroad for training where he comes face to face with Arun Virani (Hassan Niazi), an Indian fighter pilot, and their tussle starts that is shown as a love-hate relationship between the two. Story of Sherdil is lousy and unengaging on multiple grounds. Plus, it looks very hard to believe.

Performance wise the only actor that stands tall in film is Hassan Niazi, in a brief role of hardly 20 – 25 minutes he leaves strongest impact. After leaving his audience spellbound in Maalik, Niazi ones again entertains his audience in Sherdil and raises the bar. Mikaal Zulfiqar doesn’t look the character he portrays in Sherdil; he doesn’t look young enough, doesn’t ooze the patriotic vibes and besides uttering heavy nationalistic dialogues the zeal and passion seems missing. It’s a flat attempt, as an actor.

Armeena Rana Khan and Sabeeka Imam have nothing substantial to offer in Sherdil, they are actually used as props and besides giving Sabeeka an interesting character she is limited to add visual treat in the film by senselessly adding a romantic scene and a club song which again feels weird. The performance of the actor playing the father’s role of Mikaal Zulfikar can be defined as “next-level-overacting”. There’s another character that was not at all needed in the film, as Don played by Kashif Khan, the guy has good personality but his character and performance were both unneeded in the film.

Script of Sherdil is again a huge miss to come out of Pakistani cinema, the story is haphazard, there are multiple glitches in the film which are too obvious and audiences feel bored. Story telling could have been improved but that too is neglected. Only one song stands out in the film and that is ‘Kudi da jhumka’ and rest of the songs hardly noticeable.

Sherdil Movie Trailer:

Sherdil is one of those films which talks tall on patriotism and sacrifices, a really good concept to work upon, but unfortunately it has no soul. The storytelling is not only redundant but also very archaic. Pakistani audience is exposed to such kind of stories since Sunehrey Din (old Pakistani mini drama-series).

The only saving grace of Sherdil, to some extent, are the aerial shots and dogfight sequences which are decent attempts otherwise the film offers no entertainment, jokes fall flat (again toiled humor in two scenes is projected), the film doesn’t hit the right chords. A good idea wasted in visual and artistic translation.