As expected, Bollywood witnessed a massive showdown on December 1, as two major films competed head-to-head. However, while Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Ranbir Kapoor-starrer Animal recorded jaw-dropping business on its premiere day, its major contender, Meghna Gulzar’s Vicky Kaushal-starrer Sam Bahadur, managed to achieve only a modest performance at the box office, though not entirely deplorable.
Based on the real-life story of Sam Manekshaw, the former Chief of the Army Staff of the Indian Army and the first Indian Army officer to be promoted to the rank of Field Marshal, Sam Bahadur collected Rs 5.5 crore (domestic nett) on its opening day, as per early estimates by the industry tracker Sacnilk. Animal, on the other hand, minted Rs 61 crore in the domestic market on Day 1.
On Friday, Sam Bahadur witnessed an overall occupancy of 29.18% in the Hindi market. During the morning shows, the movie recorded 15.88% occupancy within the Hindi market. However, as the day progressed, the percentages experienced a consistent increase: rising to 20.61% during the afternoon showings, 30.55% during the evening shows, and peaking at 49.69% for the night screenings.
Opening up about the Animal-Sam Bahadur box office clash, Vicky told The Indian Express, “When two opening batsmen come to the crease, playing for the same team, you won’t say that the two batsmen are clashing with each other, they are playing for a single team, so we are playing for Hindi cinema.”
During another chat, the actor said that he realised with his training with the Indian Army how they function and what doesn’t make the cut for them – which is their lazy on-screen portrayal. “From all the opportunities that I got to interact with the Army, first while doing Uri and now Sam Bahadur, I actually had a lot of heart to heart conversation with them, about what they think of cinema, Hindi films depiction of them. Of course, they have said they understand one has to take creative liberties but sometimes some lines are also crossed which makes them feel, ‘Aise thodi na ho sakta hai?’ But I have seen them be very sensitive of their uniform, medals, badges,” he said in an interview with Ranveer Allahbadia.
Written by Bhavani Iyer, Shantanu Shrivastava and Meghna Gulzar, Sam Bahadur also stars Sanya Malhotra, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Neeraj Kabi, Edward Sonnenblick, Govind Namdev and Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub in key roles.
Bankrolled by Ronnie Screwvala, under the banner of RSVP Movies, the film’s music has been composed by Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy, complemented by Gulzar’s lyrics, while its background score is composed by Ketan Sodha.
Giving the film 2.5 out of 5 stars, The Indian Express’ Shubhra Gupta wrote: “Vicky Kaushal wins you over by being spot on, eyes a-twinkle, moustache a-bristle. It’s hard to play a character so closely without becoming a caricature, but he becomes Sam Bahadur.”Click for more updates and latest Bollywood news along with Entertainment updates. Also get latest news and top headlines from India and around the world at The Indian Express.