Sitaare Zameen Par Review

Sitaare Zameen Par - Not Every Star Deserves a Place in the Sky

Director – RS Prasanna

Cast - Aamir Khan, Genelia Deshmukh, Nikhat Khan, Brijender Kala

Duration – 158 Minutes

Rating: 1.5

 

If Sitaare Zameen Par aimed to inspire, entertain, or even mildly engage—mission failed. Spectacularly. What was marketed as an emotional sports drama featuring underrepresented voices ends up being a bloated, confused, and painfully dull mess. This is not just Aamir Khan’s weakest film in years—it’s a near three-hour lecture in how not to remake a movie.

 

Let’s start with the elephant in the theatre: Sitaare Zameen Par is a remake of the 2018 Spanish film Champions, but with none of its heart, humor, or sincerity. It borrows the premise, waters it down with half-baked emotion, shoddy storytelling, and piles on some of the worst music Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy have ever composed. The result? A movie so emotionally hollow and creatively bankrupt, it makes Laal Singh Chaddha look like Forrest Gump.

 

Aamir Khan—once Bollywood’s perfectionist—looks like he wandered onto set straight from a retirement home audition. As a supposedly 42-year-old basketball coach, he’s unconvincing, tired, and disinterested. His expressions range from “mildly annoyed” to “permanently confused,” and the VFX meant to de-age him is worse than Instagram filters gone rogue. This is not an aging star reinventing himself. This is an icon stubbornly stuck in a loop of bad remakes no one asked for.

 

The film drags on for a mind-numbing 158 minutes, and you feel every second of it. Basketball scenes—except for a mildly tolerable final match—are shot with the energy of a school PTA meeting. The rest are so lifeless, you’d think the players were bored too. Worse, the crowd presence is laughably bad—think gully tournament with echo effects. It's hard to believe this was made by the same R.S. Prasanna who gave us Shubh Mangal Saavdhan. Here, his direction feels like autopilot with a blindfold.

 

Genelia Deshmukh is charming as always but wasted in a role so paper-thin, even cardboard would be insulted. The supporting cast, including actors with Down syndrome, deserved a far better film. Their sincerity tries to shine through, but the writing and direction constantly trip them up. And no, casting one neurotypical actor to pretend to have Down syndrome isn’t inclusive—it’s confusing and borderline disrespectful.

 

The music? An outright disaster. Four forgettable songs, no emotional weight, and not a single hummable tune. You’ll be tempted to mute the screen every time the score kicks in. The editing is sluggish, the production design looks cheaper than a college short film, and the lighting during match scenes is so dim, you’d think the power cut out during filming.

 

Box office? Aamir Khan’s PR circus couldn’t save this one. With ₹6.88 crore in collections (and that’s being generous considering the “block bookings”), it’s clear the audience has moved on—even if Aamir hasn’t. This marks his third straight flop after Thugs of Hindostan and Laal Singh Chaddha, and by now, the writing is not just on the wall—it’s flashing in neon.

 

Verdict: Sitaare Zameen Par is a starless sky—a soulless, sluggish, and self-important film that crashes under the weight of its own mediocrity. Aamir Khan needs a long break or a new script sense. Preferably both.

 

Avoid at all costs. Or better yet, rewatch Taare Zameen Par and pretend this never happened.

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