Cinema often derives its content from society and its major events, establishing an instant connection with the viewers. At times, such inspirations work wonders for a film, leaving a deep impact on the people. But there are instances when such inclusions appear to be deliberate and hurriedly incorporated to exploit the current trending affairs.
Unfortunately, Teeja Punjab falls in the second category, which probably was started with a different vision and script, but later on, got diverted to depict the massive farmers’ protest witnessed by the country in the last two years. Though the inclusion remains entirely forced, it thankfully turns out to be the biggest merit of the film showcasing the farmers’ struggle on the roads, miles away from their fields and the family members.
It begins by introducing Bhagat, a farmer (Amberdeep Singh), who doesn’t care about selling his vote for money or liquor and gets betrayed by the village sarpanch (B. N. Sharma) losing his ownership of the land. His wife (Nimrat Khaira) also leaves the house with the kids, getting frustrated from his acts and how he gets both the family and land back, becomes its basic premise. The farmers’ protest comes into the narration as Bhagat makes several attempts for the same following the villagers and his wife to the outskirts of Delhi.
The film offers nothing significant to watch in its first hour but conveys the message of how elections are won in the interiors and how people don’t realise the value of their votes. It also points towards the cunning games played by the Sarpanchs and money-lenders fooling the innocent farmers. But nothing works either in terms of execution or engagement till it all comes to the farmers’ protest, bringing in the best sequences of the film. It’s in this section that you get to see something to relate to and praise in an empathetic manner.
Otherwise, Teeja Punjab is a too simplistic and predictable film that also has a disturbing feature of a hard-to-understand dialogue delivery of its lead, the actor-writer-director Amberdeep Singh. He acts well, but I wonder why he didn’t realise this major flaw as the captain of the ship and why nobody pointed out the fact during the shoot or at least at the dubbing stage? Also featuring Nirmal Rishi, Gurpreet Bhangu, Karamjit Anmol, Aditi Sharma, and a talented kid along with Nimrat, the supporting acts are fine but they are not able to rise because of scattered writing. On the other hand, a couple of songs grab your attention for their music and lyrics.
In all, Teeja Punjab is a film that tries to portray too many things together instead of focusing on a few important ones. And it actually becomes watchable just because of the sequences depicting the farmers’ protest and their hardships, justifying the appealing title.
Rating : 2.5 / 5
(Streaming on SonyLiv)
Bobby Sing
(bobbytalkscinema.com)
NOTE : The article was first published in THE FREE PRESS JOURNAL Newspaper (Mumbai Edition) on 19th February 2022.
