Ashutosh Gowariker’s Panipat is centred on one of the last great battles fought on Indian soil – between the Marathas and Afghans – before the Britishers united the different kingdoms for administrative ease.
Home soil, native army (Hindus), ‘outsiders’ (Muslims) and a bloody battle – the Third Battle of Panipat was fought in 1761 but, in recent years, Bollywood filmmakers have seen history from a narrow lens serving the paranoia of the present. The past is indeed never dead; as William Faulkner would have said, “It’s not even past.”
So Panipat is, right at the outset, on the precipice of a political minefield. Gowariker though, true to his nature, takes it slow (four of his films have clocked more than 210 minutes; Panipat, in contrast, is a breeze at 173). He first gives us history and context, on the flourishing reign of the Marathas, and then cuts to the Battle of Udgir in 1758, fought between the Marathas – led by the commander-in-chief Sadashiv Rao (Arjun Kapoor) – and the Nizam of Hyderabad.
At the end of that battle, the Marathas capture a Nizam general, Ibrahim Khan Gardi (Nawab Shah). They’re ready to kill him, but Sadashiv gives him an offer: to join the Marathas. “These people are known for being traitors,” says a fellow warrior. To which Sadashiv replies, “Tell me one religion that doesn’t have traitors.” Later in the movie, he says, “Shivaji, too, had Muslims in the army.”
Panipat then cuts to Pune, the Maratha Empire’s capital, where we meet the rest of the characters: Peshwa Nana Saheb (Mohnish Behl); his wife, Gopika Bai (Padmini Kolhapure); their son, Vishwas (Abhishek Nigam); and Sadashiv’s childhood friend, now the state doctor, Parvati (Kriti Sanon). The listlessness in Panipat starts from there and continues unabated.
Gowariker imagines the Maratha kingdom and its people in bland, rehashed terms: the queen, Gopika, is wary of Sadashiv, and worried that he’ll claim the throne, denying that right to her son; she is mean towards Parvati in almost every scene. Sadashiv, on the other hand, is painfully noble: a Good Man, a Good Warrior, a Good Husband.
Even the songs in this portion are pedestrian: lacking musicality and cinematographic charm. The only good thing about this segment is, surprisingly, Sanon, who looks at ease and shifts registers ever so slightly and expertly: hesitant and smiling one moment, openly flirtatious the next, and furious and grieving the other.
The Afghan kingdom is a sharp contrast. The Kandahar Fort, the abode of the king Ahmad Shah Abdali (Sanjay Dutt), is dimly lit, the predominant light being yellow (complementing an open fire), spelling inferno in a bold, capital font. Seconds later, a knife pierces a slab of meat. Soon, Abdali stabs a renegade courtier to death, with the Kohinoor diamond, nearly a dozen times.
Compare this to the cinematographic language framing the Marathas: open spaces, wide shots, bright light, people dressed in mainly white and ivory. It can be argued that that is so because the Marathas are the heroes, and the Afghans villains, but what is under question here is the extent, which plays on a vicious stereotype that doesn’t service the plot or character.
Besides, Dutt really struggles to hold a scene. As the antagonist, he lacks the intrigue and commanding power; here, Dutt is merely able to approximate menace, not live it. Kapoor isn’t too different. Given the right director and scene, he has the capacity to bring sincerity to his role, but unlike his contemporary, Ranveer Singh – who was brilliant in a similar movie, Bajirao Mastani (2015) – he doesn’t have scene-chewing chops: qualities that a Bollywood historical demands.
A severe lack of tonal variation also hurts Panipat. Humour, romance, comedy or even some inventive malice are conspicuous by their absence; the film is hence, for the large part, monotonous. Gowariker keeps slapping scene on top of scene, but beyond sketching the plot details, they say, or mean, little. A purported epic war film can’t afford to have so little plot momentum. The film os also devoid of sharp dialogues and perceptive scenes – a sense of specificity – that make it memorable and poignant.
Even the action scenes are uninspired, overtly relying on shoddy CG. Most of them that are intended to inspire spectacle – such as the crumbling of the kingdom door, the dust coming off the castle walls as the cannon shells pulverise them, the expanse of the Yamuna – are recreated so sloppily that Panipat, in these moments, resembles an animated movie. (Kesari, a similar film, suffered from the same flaw; ditto the climax of Gowariker’s last, Mohenjo Daro.)
This distinct lack of effort, across departments, is the most unfortunate part about this movie. Panipat isn’t offensive; it’s just tedious and inert – and very incompetent.