Bharat (film)

When Bharat was just 7, his parents and siblings board a train to India with many refugees for safety from Pakistan's terrible riots. Bharat loses his baby sister "Gudia" in the chaos. Their father, Gautam, stays there to search for Gudia, after Bharat promises to care for the family. He moves to the imported goods store of Gautam's sister Jamuna and her husband Keemat Rai Kapoor, and meets a roadside circus worker, Radha. They two fall in love, and join The Great Russian Circus.

Bharat has attained a lot of fame in the years he spent at circus. His brother Chote suffers an accident while trying to emulate him. Bharat bids a tearful goodbye to Radha. He and his friend, Vilayati, look for jobs when the country is shocked due to Nehru's death.

Bharat joins Indian migrants prompted by oil discovery in Saudi Arabia to earn money for his sister Mehek's marriage. There he falls in love with his chief engineer Kumud, who asks him for marriage. Bharat refuses, thinking it would come in his way of fulfilling Gautam's promise. Back in India, Kumud announces her love for him. They begin a live-in relationship.

Jamuna dies; Bharat starts working as a stationmaster. During 1983 Cricket World Cup, Keemat plans to sell the store in need of money, but later offers Bharat to buy it, as the latter refuses to sell it to anyone and still hopes Gautam will come back. With Vilayati, Bharat leaves India as a sailor for 8 months and earns money to buy the store.

After economic liberalization in India and globalization, Kumud becomes the creative director of newly formed Zee TV and runs a program to unite the relatives separated during the partition. Due to this Bharat converses with Meher, a London citizen adopted by a British family during the partition, and realizes she is Gudia, who returns to India. An emotional reunion ensues. Janki dies; Bharat hopes to find Gautam also.

Bharat decides to sell the store, which he stubbornly refused to do despite losses. Before reaching the train, Gautam promised he will unite with him at store, explaining why Bharat held on to the store for so long. He realizes Gautam is probably too old to survive still. He sees a vision of him, assuring Bharat kept his promise and asking him to move on. Tearful, he finally marries Kumud and moving on.

As of October 2021, the film holds a 32% approval rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 19 reviews with an average rating of 5.3/10.[29] Bharat received positive reviews from critics on release.[30]

Renuka Vyavahare of The Times of India gave the film three and a half stars out of five, calling it "an exhausting, scattered watch despite the entertainment, humour and nobility it propagates". She concluded, "Bharat is well-intentioned, entertaining and doesn’t succumb to the trappings of commercial potboilers".[31] Priyanka Sinha Jha of News18, praising Khan for his performance rates the film with three stars out of five, and feels that the script is a bit lengthy and required 'sharper' editing. In the end, She says, "For all its virtues, Bharat falls short of becoming a tour de force, but it could turn into a crowd-puller."[32] Trade analyst and critic Taran Adarsh concurs with Jha on script trimming and gives four stars out of five. Declaring it "smash-hit", he praises Ali for direction, Kaif, and Khan for performance. He feels that the film is an emotional journey that wins the viewers over.[33] Manjusha Radhakrishnan of the Gulf News, also says that it would have benefited from trimming so finds the film 'dull', that is likely to test the patience of the audience. And, she gives it two stars out of five.[34] Ananya Bhattacharya writing for India Today praised acting of Kaif and Khan but feels that the main attraction is Sunil Grover. She also rates it with three stars out of five and concludes that Salman has given his fans 'an out-and-out entertainer'.[35] Rajeev Masand writing for News18, finds the film "unmistakably boring" and "excruciatingly long". He rates the film with two stars out of five.[36] Anna M. M. Vetticad of Firstpost finds the film laden with weak 'humor' and 'lackluster' songs. Rating it with two stars out of five, Vetticad concludes, "Far from being a Forrest Gump with Salman Khan, Bharat is mostly a plodding trek through post-1947 to contemporary India."[37] Jyoti Sharma Bawa of the Hindustan Times finds it 'an emotional Eid winner' and rates it with three stars out of five.[38] Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express gave two and a half stars out of five and opines, "The good thing about the film, despite its eye-roll moments, is its attempt to create an ‘ordinary’ man without any particular skills.".[39] Anupama Chopra of Film Companion, "Madam Sir, a woman with courage and conviction, is the most memorable character in Bharat. I’d love to see contemporary history told from her perspective. This version has sweep and swagger but not enough soul."[40]

Bharat's opening day domestic collection was ₹42.30 crore. This is the highest opening day collection for Salman Khan.[4] On the second day it's screenings dipped in multiplexes, yet remained strong in single-screen theatres and earned 31 crore – raising the total to Rs 78.87 crore.[41] As of 25 September 2019, with a gross of ₹251.27 crore in India and ₹74.31 crore overseas, the film has a worldwide gross collection of ₹325.58 crore.[4]

Bharat is the fifth highest grossing Bollywood film of 2019.[6] Based on domestic net collection the film is among top twenty in the list of Hindi films with highest domestic net collection.