T-Series Films and Reliance Entertainment’s Sherdil – The Pilibhit Saga (UA) is an unusual story of a villager who is willing to be killed by a tiger in the jungle so that the compensation money his family would receive under a government scheme could be used for the benefit of the poor villagers.
Gangaram (Pankaj Tripathi) is a leader of a tiny and obscure village. He has the good of the villagers at heart. Since the village is suffering greatly on account of destruction of crops by animals from the nearby jungle, he visits a government office to find a solution to the problem. He gets no solution but chances upon a notice of a government scheme, put up in the office. His sharp brain works overtime and he decides to take advantage of the scheme. But for that, he would need a volunteer who would have to be killed by a tiger in the forest. Soon, he decides to himself be the volunteer. His wife, Lajjo (Sayani Gupta), and old mother are unhappy with his decision but he somehow manages to convince them. In the forest, he meets poacher Jim Ahmed (Neeraj Kabi). Does Gangaram succeed in his mission?
Srijit Mukherji has written a story which will appeal to the festival circuit audience only. His screenplay moves at a slow pace. This, coupled with the fact that the story-line is very thin, makes the drama not at all suitable for the regular audience which looks for the usual entertainment in a drama. The climax is also unusual and the plea made in the court is hard-hitting. Dialogues, penned by Srijit Mukherji, Sudeep Nigam and Atul Kumar Rai, are very good and often hard-hitting too.
Pankaj Tripathi delivers a very fine performance as the innocent Gangaram. He gets into the skin of the character. Neeraj Kabi is pretty effective as Jim Ahmed. Sayani Gupta makes her mark as Lajjo. Kasturi Jangam, Mohit Prajapati, Madhavendra Jha, Anil Kuriakose, Md. Faiz Alam, Samrat Biswas, Rajesh Tiwari, Om Prakash Ladha, Suresh Bhola, Srijit Mukherji, Soham Guha Pattadhar, Punya Darshan Gupta, Manish Chatterjee, Rohit Basfore, Somnath Mondal, Yasha Jhunjhunwala and Sunandita Ghosh lend fair support.
Srijit Mukherji’s direction caters to a very thin section of the class audience. Shantanu Moitra’s music is quite nice. Lyrics (Gulzar, Sant Kabir, Vinod Dube and Rahgir) are in synch with the mood of the film. Shantanu Moitra’s background music is fairly good. Tiyash Sen’s camerawork is appealing. Krishnendu Ghosh’s action and stunt scenes are quite natural. Art direction (Tanmoy Chakraborty) is alright. Pronoy Dasgupta’s editing is reasonably sharp.
On the whole, Sherdil – The Pilibhit Saga is a decently made film but with no chance of survival at the box-office because it is more of a festival film than a commercial entertainer.
Released on 24-6-’22 at Inox (daily 2 shows) and other cinemas of Bombay by Reliance Entertainment. Publicity & opening: frighteningly poor. …….Also released all over.
