Laal Singh Chaddha (2022)

Laal Singh Chaddha is the kind of big-hearted, crowd-sized drama that reminds you why movies can feel like companions: it looks at a sweeping stretch of Indian history through the gentle, clear-eyed gaze of a man whose simplicity isn’t a punchline, but a kind of moral light. Advait Chandan gives the story an easy, conversational flow—funny one moment, quietly devastating the next—while Aamir Khan and Kareena Kapoor Khan anchor it with performances that aim for sincerity over cynicism. Even if you know the Hollywood template it’s adapting, the film’s Punjabi textures, music, and emotional rhythms make it feel rooted in its own soil, with romance and regret lingering like a familiar song. It’s not for viewers allergic to earnestness or melodrama, but if you’re willing to meet it on its wavelength, it offers warmth, tears, and a surprisingly humane afterglow.

Laal Singh Chaddha is clearly aiming for a big, warm-hearted sweep through modern Indian history, using one innocent man’s optimism to stitch together love, loss, and national milestones. The problem is it often feels less like its own story and more like a very faithful echo of Forrest Gump, so if you’re craving originality, you may find yourself checking your watch during its long, uneven runtime. Aamir Khan’s broad, childlike performance will either strike you as endearing or distractingly exaggerated, and the film leans hard into sentiment in a way that can feel engineered rather than earned. If you enjoy earnest, old-school melodrama and don’t mind a slow, episodic structure, there’s genuine sweetness and a few emotional highs here; if not, it may feel like a well-meaning marathon with too many laps.