Based on true events, Sherdil follows the story of a poverty stricken villager who decides to give up his body as a prey for the tigers to feast on, to claim.a compensation for his village. The story is powerful and really a tale which needed to be told. The screenplay standing at 2 hours is probably a tad too much considering the manner in which the story is narrated. Probably, 20 odd minutes could easily have been chopped off on the edit table. But it is an important film nevertheless.

The screenplay is an absolute slow burn so if you aren’t privy to slow burns then you are less likely to like the film. In other words, the drama is niche and requires patience. You get a glimpse of the world when the protagonist meets up with the authorities in quite a long opening sequence where he is told about the “simple” process of placing an inquiry. The premise is excellent and extremely well setup. But having said that this ain’t all a rosy ride.

The screenplay has its share of shortcomings as well. There are moments where the film is uneventful, almost absorbing on the silence of the place where it is set in. Some portions in the first hour did feel repetitive especially when you had established the issue, it did feel needless to show the same scenes again. Another minor drawback was the ending which seemed disjointed and almost rushed. Although it was a logical one but it gave me an impression that the makers wanted to just get on with it at the end. Also, the scene involving two men taking a dump and having a philosophical take on the rich vs poor debate just seemed far fetched for me.

But there is much to love in the screenplay as well. The issues which are raised through the running minutes of the film, make for a good satire which is subtly and not in your face(like how Janhit Mein Jaari was). Also, the humour is dry and the film doesn’t wish to be funny intentionally(no puns intended). The message again highlighted through a monologue at the end is good and quite relevant and for that the film needed to find the right takers instead of just panning the film(something which happened with Anek too). I guess the mindset of the audience at the moment is not to watch thought provoking stuff and simply invest their time in over the top stuff(which is not necessarily wrong provided it is done well). In other words, the screenplay is not as sharp as it could have been but in no way is it bad.