SARVANN (Punjabi) - Didn't expect such a weak and irresponsible film from a talented team, poorly mixing the elements of Rajesh Khanna's ROTI and DUSHMAN. (Review by Bobby Sing)

Before talking about the film, would like to mention the exclusive features of this project raising the expectations of both the viewers as well as the Punjabi Film Industry considering it as their much awaited gateway.

From the viewer’s point of view, SARVANN is the third film in a row from the team of Amrinder Gill (the singer turned actor) and Amberdeep Singh (the writer), post their two appreciable hits as ANGREJ and PUNJAB LOVE released in the last two years. So obviously, much was expected from the team, both in terms of quality and novelty together to say the least.

In addition, SARVAAN is the debut film of one of most talented singers of the present era Ranjit Bawa, who has his own fan following all over, thanks to his ‘different’ and ‘refreshing’ content-rich songs and their videos.

But most importantly and from the industry point of view, SARVANN is the first Punjabi project financed and presented by Hindi cinema’s well known actress Priyanka Chopra, who herself comes from a Punjabi family background, well familiar with the language and its cinema too. In fact this is the main reason why the film was being widely looked upon as a gateway into a much bigger horizon moving ahead from the present routine set up and the fixed territories.

However, many a time’s things do not turn out to be as per the expectation raised, even when you hire the most talented and in-demand artists for your first project, which unfortunately happens to be the case with SARVANN too, wherein both the experienced Amrinder and the talented Amberdeep unfortunately fail to deliver when it was actually required the most for the betterment of their own cinema.

In short SARVANN can easily be rated as the weakest and unexpectedly the most casually written and performed film by the entire team including the writers, actors and its director Karaan Guliani, ruining a major opportunity that could have opened many new possibilities for the entire Punjabi film industry.

It begins with a couple of characters living abroad involved in criminal activities and within the first ten minutes itself gives you a clear indication of a much bigger mess coming ahead in its next two hours. The director rushes with his scenes without any explanatory stay and one gets to see quite a few amateurish supporting characters on the screen, who probably were promised a role by the makers and then had to be obliged too. The focus soon shifts from Canada to India with the plane landing in Maharashtra (???) and from here onwards the film strangely turns into a silly Marathi-Hindi-Punjabi mix, progressing without any basic vision or storyline along with a couple of forced religious messages inserted with no visible purpose as such (maybe following some external instructions of the producer). The narration keeps jumping from one genre to another beginning from being a crime-thriller to a road movie, a love story, a family drama and more till it actually reveals the plot after almost 90 minutes, that sadly turns out to be a poorly written mix of Rajesh Khanna’s ROTI and DUSHMAN.

Not even one name in the entire cast delivers something watchable to be honest and I really wish this was not the debut movie of the promising Ranjeet Bawa. Turning into an extremely hard watch post the interval hampered by an immature direction, unbearable comedy, casual dialogue delivery, filler kind of (out of sync) background score and a clearly rushed up writing, SARVANN honestly has only one merit to its credit and that’s the song “Ni Mainu Akh Ta Laa Lain De” but nothing else.

Putting it bluntly, when it really mattered the most, both Amrinder Gill and Amberdeep Singh (unnecessarily acting in the film) together come up with such a weak (read pathetic) and irresponsible film poorly mixing the story elements of two Hit Hindi films mentioned above in the name of a script, presented to a reputed (visiting) producer, who should have ideally gifted a much stronger and powerful film saving both her financial and emotional interests building a trust factor.

So simply rating SARVANN as an astonishingly poor and strictly avoidable film, this is a mega disappointment from the makers, personally felt both as a viewer and a part of the industry still looking for a breakthrough from its set routine parameters.

Rating : 0.5 + 0.5 / 5  (with 0.5 for the crew and 0.5 for the song “Ni Main Akh Ta Laa Lain De” in particular).