Sam Manekshaw – AKA Sam Bahadur (“Sam the Brave”) – lived via some extraordinary durations of change. Born into an India dominated by Britain, he joined the military and fought for British-Indian pursuits in opposition to Japan within the second world battle. On partition in 1947 he was assigned to a brand new unit, as his earlier regiment was now a part of Pakistan’s armed forces. He later oversaw India’s half within the Indo-Pakistani battle, which led to the formation of Bangladesh, and have become, in 1973, the primary Indian military officer to be promoted to the rank of discipline marshal, simply as he retired.

This historic framework may make a wealthy foundation for a Colonel Blimp-style take a look at how values and politics shift round a person as they age, however within the occasion, that’s not how the makers of this biopic strategy their topic. No doubt with a view to India’s present surge of nationalist sentiment, and with enter from Manekshaw’s household, director Meghna Gulzar angle is relatively extra easy. Manekshaw is introduced all through as a hero, persistently right, noble, witty and forgiving. Whether he’s standing as much as politicians, boxing a rival or charming his future spouse, the man can do no fallacious, and the charming Vicky Kaushal is well-cast within the function.

The movie is at its most watchable when dramatising enjoyable anecdotes from Manekshaw’s life. When he takes a spherical of machine-gun fireplace to the chest, no one thinks he can survive. A physician asks Manekshaw what occurred to him; he replies that he was kicked by a mule and the physician determines that any man with such a way of humour should be saved in any respect prices.

Where this strategy lands the movie in bother is within the total form of the drama – the incidents and set-pieces are neatly accomplished, however the construction is considerably episodic. It’s a perennial drawback for biopics; easy methods to give occasions the momentum of fiction when the underlying narrative is truth. This leaves the movie feeling like an illustration of the variously attributed maxim that historical past is solely one damned factor after one other.

• Sam Bahadur is in cinemas from 1 December.