Sarzameen Movie Review: Strong turns by Kajol and Prithviraj can’t salvage a film weighed down by Ibrahim Ali Khan

The story follows Vijay Menon (Prithviraj Sukumaran), an Indian Army officer posted in Kashmir.

‘Sarzameen,’ directed by Kayoze Irani, was released on 25th July on Jio Hotstar and stars Kajol, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Ibrahim Ali Khan, Boman Irani, and Jitendra Joshi.

A promising story that falls flat

‘Sarzameen’ is a film that has all the right ideas—a father torn between duty and love for his son, a family broken by violence, a child returning home after years—but somehow, it just doesn’t connect the way it should. You expect to feel something deep, to be shaken by the choices the characters make, but that feeling never really comes.

The story has weight, but the way it’s told feels flat. The emotions don’t hit hard. The twists don’t feel earned. And even though Kajol and Prithviraj give it their all, the film ends up feeling cold and distant. By the time the climax arrives, it’s so sudden and out of the blue that you’re left confused, not moved. It’s not that the twist is bad—it’s that the film never prepares your heart for it.

A father’s choice and a son’s return

The story follows Vijay Menon (Prithviraj Sukumaran), an Indian Army officer posted in Kashmir. He’s called in to handle a rising terror threat and ends up catching two feared terrorists. But everything changes when his young son Harman (Ibrahim Ali Khan) is kidnapped by the militants. They offer a deal: release the terrorists, and you get your son back. Vijay agrees. But when the exchange is happening, he hesitates. The idea of letting terrorists go free eats at him.

At the very last moment, he shoots. One of them dies. The other escapes—with Harman. The pain of that moment stays with the family. Eight years go by. And then one day, Harman comes back. But he’s not the same. He’s older and colder, and there’s something broken inside him that no one knows how to fix.

An emotionally hollow core

This is where the film really stumbles. Harman’s character should have been the most powerful part of the story. A boy who was soft-spoken and unsure of himself, now returning home after years of trauma—there’s so much to explore there. But sadly, Ibrahim Ali Khan doesn’t bring that to life. His performance feels stiff and distant.

You don’t feel his pain, his confusion, or his anger. It’s all very blank. And when the rest of the film is built around his return, this becomes a big problem. You can see what the filmmakers were going for—a son who never felt fully accepted, now trying to find his place again—but the emotion just doesn’t land. It’s especially hard when you see him share screen space with actors like Kajol and Prithviraj, who are so natural and heartfelt.

Kajol and Prithviraj shine in an unsteady film

Kajol is wonderful in the role of Meher. She plays a mother who is stuck in an impossible situation—trying to hold her family together when both her husband and son are drifting apart. Her emotions feel real. There’s a quiet strength in the way she carries the character. Prithviraj, too, is as good as Vijay. He shows the pain of a man who made a tough choice and is now haunted by it. You see the pride in him, but also the guilt. He carries it all on his face.

There is a problem in the way the film is put together. The direction by Kayoze Irani feels too clean, too safe. A story like this needed rawness. It needed mess. Kashmir doesn’t feel like Kashmir. The tension never feels real. Even the supporting characters, like Vijay’s colleague played by Jitendra Joshi, seem oddly static—like the world around the story isn’t moving, just standing still.

Melodrama over emotion

What really pulls the film down is how it chooses melodrama over real emotion. It doesn’t trust the audience to feel—it tries to force the feeling. There are songs that show up in moments where silence would’ve worked better. There’s a scene in the end where the entire family tries to defuse a bomb—and honestly, by that point, it feels silly. It’s the kind of thing that makes you sigh because you can see what the film could have been.

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‘Sarzameen’ had a strong heart somewhere inside it. It just didn’t know how to express it. It touches on such big, painful questions—about country, about love, about how far a parent can go—but doesn’t sit with them long enough.

And when the person at the center of all of it—Ibrahim—doesn’t rise to the moment, the film starts to collapse around him. He still has time to grow as an actor. The big reveal at the end feels more like a gimmick than a genuine twist. But this film, sadly, will be remembered not for its story but for the chances it wasted.

Rating: 2/5