‘Subedaar’ review: Anil Kapoor is a great grump but the film can't keep up

Throughout Subedaar, various characters tell retired army man Arjun Maurya (Anil Kapoor) that he’s no longer on the border. Sometimes it’s a threat, sometimes a plea, but the implication is the same: there are rules to that kind of warfare, whereas the battles waged in his small north Indian hometown are cruel and illogical. “Forget you were in the army,” his friend Prabhakar (Saurabh Shukla) urges him. “Welcome to real life.” But Arjun is spiralling in his grief and spoiling for a fight.

From the moment we lay eyes on Arjun’s shiny new red Gypsy, we know it'll be John Wick’s dog. The car symbolises his memory of his wife, who died in an accident while he was away on duty. So, when bratty gangster Prince (Aditya Rawal) takes offense to the veteran’s gruff manner and gets his thugs to trash the vehicle, Arjun snaps. A lot of this is grief turned to rage, but there’s also some relief. The car is a reminder of how he neglected his family for years and wasn’t around for his wife’s final moments. Instead of mending relationships with his grieving, resentful daughter, Shyama (Radhika Madan), isn’t it easier to take on the local sand mafia?

Suresh Triveni’s film is a curious beast. It reminded me at times of Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino, another story of a tough, bitter veteran protecting a few vulnerable citizens from a local gang. Kapoor’s performance, too, is Eastwood-like, his face twisted into a hard mask, grinding out monosyllables as if each word were costing him hours on earth. But Subedaar also wants to be a swaggering senior citizen action film, the kind Denzel Washington or Liam Neeson might make. In the end, it does both to a serviceable degree, but always seems a few steps short of where it could be.

Curmudgeon though he is, Arjun does try and abide by a moral code. Prince’s sister and boss, Babli didi (Mona Singh), can’t be bothered with rules. Khauff khatam toh khel khatam, she explains—when the fear’s gone, it’s game over. Yet, Babli, who’s in prison the whole film, is never convincingly terrifying. Rawal’s Prince is amusingly vulgar—there’s a poetry to his accented Hindi—and Faisal Malik does his usual deft work as Babli’s smarter lieutenant, Softy. But Babli is a thin sketch; if she’s become the local don through cunning, we’re never shown evidence of this, and Mona Singh is wasted on salty putdowns and occasional outbursts.

Kapoor and Madan’s scenes together bristle and ache, a very different film than the rest of Subedaar. Arjun is clearly hurting, but a life in the army away from his family has left him ill-equipped to access his feelings. Shyama is suffering in the aftermath of her mother’s death, living with a father who barely speaks to her, let alone be a comfort. She has her own ongoing battle with harassing students at her college, which culminates in a surprisingly gnarly scene, especially when contrasted with the pulpy violence that Arjun dishes out.

The scene where Arjun first goes berserk is worked out well enough by Triveni and action director Vikram Dahiya that I was keen to see what they'd do when things really came to a boil. This turned out to be a huge letdown, a mess of a splashy set piece. Perhaps they weren’t confident to stitch together a long sequence with Kapoor (who’s never been an action star); perhaps they tried and it wasn’t useable. Whatever the reason, we’re instead presented a bewildering back and forth: Arjun and Prabhakar in a tense parlay with Prince and Softy; then a henchman’s head is put through the door; then we see them driving away; then they’re back in the room. Fighting follows—some of it quite fun—but by now the momentum has been lost.

Despite all this, Subedaar is quite enjoyable, if never satisfying. There’s a sadistic edge to proceedings; it’s probably no coincidence the titles that whizz by every now and then are a Tarantino yellow. In 2022, Kapoor co-starred with his son Harsh Varrdhan in the neo-noir Thar, which was similarly mean and dusty. It wasn’t exceptional either, but it had an authentic darkness and seemed more of a piece than Subedaar. Kapoor’s great in both. He’s the right Hindi actor for this sort of world-weary hero. Third time’s the charm.

‘Subedaar’ is on Amazon Prime.