Comparing Shershaah with Major.

This post is not a comparison of real life Captain Vikram Batra and Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan.

In my opinion, Major is a much better movie than Shershaah. That's because the major strength (pun not intended) of the film which Shershaah lacked, was the development of the supporting characters and the focus on their relationship with the main hero.

Despite being a biopic, Major decides to focus a considerable amount of time on Sandeep's family background (his parents and girlfriend/wife), apart from the main hero of the film. This results in the action packed second half and the climax of the movie being extremely emotional.

You realise that a person losing his life doesn't just affect him, but completely changes the life of people around him as well. It adds more weight to Sandeep's sacrifice, and not just death, but even the life of a soldier effects people associated with him. Like parents constantly being worried for their son's life or him not having any time to give to his marriage and wife, these are some struggles which every soldier faces to some extent, and it's been realistically shown in the movie.

Shershaah doesn't focus much on Vikram Batra's family background. It doesn't show any special bonding between him and any other character back home apart from his girlfriend Dimple.

Due to which (and with all due respect to Vikram Batra and his sacrifice), the climax and his death fails to have the same emotional punch for me. Shershaah is more of a war film, so the movie shows his bonding with fellow soldiers more often. This still would've worked, if the movie took time develop the characters of his war buddies. But here also all the relationship look half baked.

Jimmy's character seems very important at first but is not so much later on. The deaths of his friends in the war could have more emotional weight if their bonding was given more focus.

Also, the way Vikram and Sandeep's deaths are shown and handled in both the films differ as well. Shershaah shows Vikram dying in a grand way. It shows glory in dying in a war, the way he smiles even in his last moments. There's no guilt or sadness.

Sandeep dies in a grand way as well, but in his final moments they show that he's still human. That he doesn't want to die. That he still cares about his family. It feels more tragic.

Both movies and main characters are extremely tragic, because both are a real life story of a soldier sacrificing his life for his country at a very young age. Major made me feel that. Shershaah unfortunately didn't.

Considering both films are real life biopics, maybe a comparison is not fair because it's not like writers could or should add something extra to the story to make it more appealing. But I just wanted to tell why I liked one film much more than the other.

Lastly, I again want to say this is not a comparison of both real life heroes. If anyone feels this post is disrespectful or insensitive, I sincerely apologise.

Tell which movie is better in your opinion?

No disrespect to real-life heroes, but both films couldn't impress me. Shershaah was just decent, okay. It could have been much better. Major I started, but couldn't watch it. It was slow.

I did not like either movies....may be I got sick of biopics or the screenplay was not engaging throughout in these both movies. They both seemed average at best and overhyped...not disrespecting the real heroes.

This again is not a comparison but more of an observation of the similarities and differences between Vikram and Sandeep. Both soldiers at one point in their life wanted to join Navy instead of Army for different reasons.

Sandeep opts for army because he didn't have a choice as he was rejected from Navy. Vikram's first choice was always army since childhood and he decides to settle for Navy for Dimple, but in the end chooses army because that's his ultimate dream.

Sandeep's passion was to serve his country somehow and joining the army was a way for it as he learned to know what it means to be a soldier. Vikram's passion was to join the army first and foremost before anything else but he still always knew what it means to be a soldier. Atleast that's what I got from their portrayal shown in the films.