‘Sarbjit’, based on the story of a man incarcerated in a Pakistani jail for over two decades, while his sister fought a dogged battle for his release, opts for high-pitched saccharine-laden melodrama: the star is equally high-pitched, leaving the actor to bring up the rear.
Sarbjit’s story has been well-documented. He lived with his family—old father, wife Sukh( Chaddha), and fiercely loyal sister Dalbir( Rai) in a Punjab village close to the Indo-Pak border. He strayed over the line one night, and was nabbed by the Pakistani patrol. That’s when his ordeal started—thrown in a box for months, limbs contorted, hung upside down and flayed till bloody, till he was forced into a false confession, and jailed.