movie reviews

Sanak Movie Review: Vidyut Jammwal Retains The ‘Biggest Action Star’ Tag, But Loses Hold Of The Plot

Rohit Shetty November 11, 2021

441 4 minutes read

Sanak Movie Review Rating: 2.5 out of 5.0 stars2.5

Star Cast: Vidyut Jammwal, Neha Dhupia, Rukmini Maitra, Chandan Roy Sanyal and ensemble.

Director: Kanishk Varma

Wrtiter: Ashish P. Verma

A Still From Movie

What’s Good: Vidyut Jammwal punching baddies with lightning speed and his sheer dedication to the genre.

What’s Bad: The makers relying too heavily on Vidyut and not polishing the world around all his action that becomes the main show.

Loo Break: As already indicated, not when the man is in combat, otherwise, feel free to. Also, it’s on OTT, pause it.

Watch or Not?: Not every day do we get the level of action showcased in Sanak, top of that Jammwal himself has performed it. Go in for that.

Language: Hindi (with subtitles)

Available on: Disney+ Hotstar

Runtime: 117 Minutes

User Rating:

A happy couple is struck by bad days when the wife is diagnosed with a rare heart problem. A surgery cures her but destiny has different plans. A terrorist attack in the hospital leads to her been taken hostage and the husband who is a former MMA trainer has to save his lady from the bad men.

A Still From Movie

Sanak Movie Review: Script Analysis

Action genre in Hindi cinema is still a niche. You can easily count the stars who have dedicated their craft to it on fingers. Vidyut Jammwal is definitely on the top of that list, and his fans forever wait for him to get into action. Well, even the writers of Sanak do. A movie that takes Hospital as its war ground manages to have a unique base, but what about the plot? Did we forget that needs to have some unique elements too?

Ashish P Verma takes the credit as the writer of the film. The movie gets to the phase where the action begins after 22 minutes of the set-up. Now it is obvious that everything happening in those 22 minutes is a build-up to the drama we are about to witness. But if you make that time look like a countdown with no meat except the lead pairs cute chemistry, that too cut abruptly, it all looks lazy.

At this point, it looks like you survived the build-up without really grasping anything just to enjoy Vidyut flexing his muscles in the most amazing way. While the fighting sequences are what the writers depend completely upon to bring in the audience, they forget they have created a world for the one who is throwing those punches. Vidyut time and again gets anxiety attacks, why? Do they bother to tell clearly? No! Rukmini aka Anshika suddenly does a martial arts move, do we know she knew that? No! The couple together is all forms of cute, but does their back story that seems to be interesting is explored any further? No!

On top of this all, the writing equips of 10 something old kid of knowing a lot about guns. He knows how to use them. If that is unbelievable, he even knows how to defuse a bomb plant by a group of highly skilled terrorist, who had planned that attack for 4 months. So, when after all of this, the Mumbai Police leaves this operation up to a civilian, you don’t judge them much, because you have given up on logic.

Sanak Movie Review: Star Performance

Vidyut Jammwal has claimed his throne to be the biggest action star yet again. He punches at the speed of flash and kills people with bare hands. The magic is that, he makes this all look so believable. There is a charm in his smirks too, that’s another thing fans definitely come for.

Rukmini Maitra who makes her Bollywood debut is promising in the part she is given. Her chemistry with Vidyut is adorable and I wish the makers gave the audience a bit more of that.

Chandan Roy Sanyal as the antagonist enters the screen with a bang, promising a lot. But by the time passes, he resorts to eccentric traits of a crazy villain, thus making his good performance a caricature.

Neha Dhupia also suffers a similar fate. The actor enters the movie as a police officer with a strong personality. But when she decides to only stare at a CCTV screen and let a civilian carry out an operation to beat a terrorist group, you cannot suspend your disbelief to that extent.

A Still From Movie

Sanak Movie Review: Direction, Music

Kanishk Varma in his direction is focused on showcasing how phenomenal his leading man is at what he does. Nothing wrong in that, but without focusing on anything else, becomes a bit lethargic.

Action director Andy Long Nguyen though does the most amount of hardwork. Getting work with Jammwal, he designs never seen before stunts and sequences. He is also clever enough to use the surrounding to support the action. Two sequences that stand out is one in the MRI room and other in the physiotherapy ward.

Sanak Movie Review: The Last Word

Vidyut Jammwal is the biggest reason to watch Sanak, but cannot be the only attention-grabbing point of the movie. While the action is top-notch, wish the plot was equally developed too.