Three hours after the press show, I’m yet to regain my senses of smell, taste, touch, hearing and full eyesight. If I were a character in the film, there would have been eight bullets in me by now but I’d still be writing. And milking my last line. So I’m going to be as polite and restrained as possible here. The only way Kesari could have done justice to its source material is if it didn’t exist.

The lack of a creative driver behind the film leads to a level of fundamental dissatisfaction.

Irrespective of what the 36th Sikhs’ actual motivations were, obviously theirs was a historic last stand worthy of a film. When an honest army procedural could have had an impact, the team of Kesari chose instead to be a barely disguised propaganda vehicle and to chronicle this remarkable episode with self-defeating twists. A spot of exaggeration here and there could of course be explained away as cinematic licence, even the loudness and initial tempo could have been excused, but this goes way beyond that. It is as if Team Kesari were dissatisfied with the truth about the 36th Sikh Regiment who, ironically, they seek here to lionise.