Movie Review: Sarfarosh (1999)

The scorching heat, a windy desert, a deep-voiced narrative and the bright sunlit sandy terrain of Bahid complements the dark overtones which the film explores in the reels that follow. SARFAROSH - the title unravels.

For a directorial debut, John Mathew Matthan put up a great show, bringing to us a taut storyline, impressive dialogues, a star cast full of undervalued gems and scintillating music, all wrapped in a cinematic treat. The strength of this movie is its diversity and non-aligned behaviour.

Diverse, because it focussed on a variety of sub-genres under the umbrella of an action film - be it the innocent romance between the college sweethearts Ajay (Aamir Khan) and Seema (Sonali Bendre) or the grey natured Gulfam Hassan (Naseeruddin Shah) whose character was scarred for life with the ravages of the Partition - the film covers all extremes while keeping the pace of the film just perfect.

The film is non-aligned as neither does it supplicate itself to the genre of a full blown war-film, nor does it advocate to be a staunch romantic saga set against the backdrop of a conflict ridden country.
The praise of its cinematic brilliance may cause this review to be worth a book's length.

The next aspect, a most wonderful aspect of this film is its music.
"Jo Haal Dil Ka", marks the beginning of the film's soundtrack - its infectious guitar riff is what makes it a chartbuster.
The evergreen ghazal, "Hoshwalon Ko Khabar Kya" by the indisputable King of Ghazals, Jagjit SIngh is an excellent confluence of lyrical and melodic artistry. "Yeh Jawaani Had Kar De" and "Meri Raaton Ki Neenden" are worth a listen, but their growing on you is up to your taste of music. The final track of the film (which ironically is the first song shown in the film) "Zindagi Maut Na Ban Jaaye" by the hit duo of Sonu Nigam and Roopkumar Rathod can surely give you vibes of "Sandese Aate Hain" sung by the same duo 2 years prior to the release of this film.
Overall, the film is worthy of the 10 stars it has been awarded from my side. Note that this review has been written after seeing the film multiple times.

As published by me on IMDb.

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