Subedaar Cast/Actors: Anil Kapoor, Radhika Madan, Mona Singh, Aditya Rawal, Saurabh Shukla and Faisal Malik
Subedaar Director: Suresh Triveni
Subedaar Production House: Abundantia Entertainment, Opening Image Films and Anil Kapoor Film & Communication Network (AKFCN)
Subedaar Movie Release Date: March 5, 2026
Subedaar Available On: Prime Video OTT Platform
Subedaar Released/Available In Languages: Hindi, Tamil and Telugu
Subedaar Movie Runtime: 2h 25m
Subedaar Movie Review:
When two village kids look up at a plane and wonder how people inside an aircraft poop up there, it’s sweet, it’s innocent but it’s been heard many times before. That sums up director Suresh Triveni’s one-man fight against corruption, a sirf ek bandaa kaafi hai kind of battle with the backdrop of a cruel sand mining mafia, insensitive government employees who repeatedly tell citizens to “come back tomorrow”, and policemen who look the other way, refusing to file an FIR. You’ve seen it before.
While a crane shovels sand looking ominous, and chirpy, happy children disappear in the constant dredging of water bodies, a badass Prince (Aditya Rawal) arrives. The number plate on his car reads BOSS. Entitled and uncouth, trigger-happy with a loose-limbed swagger and a smirk on the face, Prince has a penchant for p**ing. He p**s into a car to trash it, he swigs beer and p**s into the bottles, he demands that the hero permit him to p** in his face before shaking hands. After gunning down someone or driving over another’s head, he breaks into a devilish dance and asks an aghast band to start playing, that’s what they’re paid to do.
Co-writer Prajwal Chandrashekar and Triveni need look no further to establish that crude sadism runs unchecked in this town, Prince protected by his sister Babli Didi, the mafia queen (Mona Singh), cooling her heels in jail, spewing the chu… abuse and filing her nails while ordering heads to roll. Didi has her own brand of humiliating people. Uncle-type family members like Softy Bhaiya (Faisal Malik) are made to grovel and clean up her mess while her skinny lawyer shivers like the rest of the town.
Into this wretchedness arrives retired army solder Subedaar Arjun Maurya (Anil Kapoor) with college-going daughter Shyama (Radhika Madan) who wears anger on her nose.
For a while, Triveni keeps the curiosity alive. Who is this Subedaar who’s quietly seething? Who is this widower who’s silently grieving? What’s his daughter’s beef with him?
But once the floodgates of Subedaar’s anger break open and he bashes up Prince and his army of hoodlums, it settles down to familiar rounds of who’ll bludgeon whom and how many times until the baddies are exterminated. There is a stray line of wit as Subedaar gets a chance to throw back at a government official the line, “Come tomorrow”. But you can’t help wondering, if his wife and daughter lived here, didn’t Subedaar know what this town was all about?
Triveni tries to give it a Clint Eastwood-y spaghetti western ambience and, despite the rough terrain, succeeds to some extent in making a stylish film. The well-maintained Anil Kapoor is also watchable as he pummels the villains with professional ease, though all the ingredients were more tailored for a standard Deol delight.
However, like the good-bad showdown becomes routine, when Shyama’s grouse finally airs itself, it’s incomprehensibly infantile. How is an army father being unreachable when he’s in the middle of a battle, such a difficult situation for a daughter to understand or to forgive?
Triveni does attempt to march slightly differently. Shyama’s fight on the campus that gets confused with Subedaar’s larger fight against the mafia is an interesting overlap. But honestly, all it required was one simple conversation for the self-created complications to disappear.
To make it seem intriguing, Triveni uses fractured storytelling with flashbacks to Subedaar’s army life and the pickle-making business of his late wife Sudha (Khusboo Sundar reduced to flashbacks once again after Anil Sharma’s Vansh). But there’s no surprise on standby after the build-up. Sometimes, the makers also forget the character they’re writing about. Like Shyama cowering in a corner at home but overdosing on spunk and ballsy fights at all other times.
The thought is bright: cleanse society with fit-for-battle soldiers who’re “retired but not tired” as Nana Waghmare (Nana Patekar) says, in a surprise appearance.
There is also some good music. Amidst the dusty, rustic surroundings, ‘Ae ri sakhi moray’ sounds like honey dripping in a desert.
But the Dhurandhar brand of breaking the narrative into chapters titled ‘Fear. Parking. Truce etc.’ has stopped being a novelty especially as Prince and his ‘Big Enjoy’ p**ing spree comes to a predictable end. And Babli Didi, largely impotent except for cursing behind bars, also faces Judgement Day.
Triveni asks the big question, is it the end or the prarambh of another chapter? Ho hum, that’s also a question that’s been asked before.
Subedaar – Watch it or not?: An OTT watch has its advantages and a clean-up mission can do with a pat.
Subedaar Movie Review Score Rating: 2.5 out of 5 (i.e. 2.5/5)
Subedaar Official Trailer:
Credits: Prime Video India
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source https://lehren.com/subedaar-movie-review-soldier-on-a-crusade/
