Sam Bahadur beats Zara Hatke Zara Bachke to become Vicky Kaushal's fourth biggest opener at the box office

Vicky Kaushal's Sam Bahadur, which clashed with Ranbir Kapoor's Animal at the box office, has managed to open to a decent response as it raked in Rs 6.25 crore on its first day. While the Sandeep Reddy Vanga directorial remained the first choice for the cinegoers, Sam Bahadur gained momentum in the evening and night shows and managed to put up a respectable total.With this, it has emerged as the fourth biggest opener of Vicky Kaushal after Sanju (34.75 crore), Uri: The Surgical Strike (Rs 8.20 crore) and Raazi (Rs 7.53 crore).The film needs to witness great growth over the weekend to register a good first weekend at the box office. While the Meghna Gulzar directorial will continue to face a strong opponent in the form of Animal, it has the advantage of 3 week-open window at the box office until the arrival of Dunki and Salaar.Produced under the banner of RSVP, Sam Bahadur also features Sanya Malhotra, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Neeraj Kabi, Govind Namdev and others in prominent roles with a cameo from Kalki Koechlin. It marks the second collaboration between Vicky Kaushal and Meghna Gulzar after Raazi.Talking about the review, Firstpost gave 3 stars and wrote, "While the filmmaker has perfectly captured the essence of the 1930s to 1970s era along with the war sequences, the narrative failed to find a connect as it looked scattered with the slow-paced progress of the story. Honestly, the uniformity of the storytelling turned out to be a major concern as there were no high points or wow moments in the film (which you do expect when you are making a movie on a great soldier).While Sam Bahadur is not the best work of Meghna Gulzar, Vicky Kaushal’s impeccable act makes it a decent watch."