I remember not liking Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk when I saw it back in 2017. The reason was pin-pointedly specific. The aerial-action sequences, featuring Tom Hardy’s eyes, were too technically sound. The visuals were claustrophobic. I felt dizzy being inside the cockpit of the nosediving spitfire, with blasts going off outside. I remember wanting to walk out of the theatre but feared being lynched by Nolan fanboys. This year, it was a different kind of nausea but same sort of fear with Kangana Ranaut’s Tejas. Siddharth Anand’s Fighter is a commendable upgrade from that unpleasant sortie, for sure. But for Hindi actioners, the bar is so low that sometimes we have to make do with competence in absence of brilliance. That’s not to say Fighter isn’t fun. With Hrithik Roshan and Deepika Padukone as leads, it has no dearth of beauty. Siddharth’s technical prowess too contributes to this sleek product. It is essentially an old-school masala film in a new India, where makers are doubtful about a particular ingredient. How much nationalism is too much nationalism?
The plot seems heavily influenced by Tom Cruise’s Top Gun franchise. The Air Force has constituted an elite quick response team in Jammu and Kashmir. The unit, Air Dragons, includes Minal “Minni” Rathore (Deepika Padukone), Sartaj “Taj” Gill (Karan Singh Grover) and Basheer “Bash” Khan (Akshay Oberoi). The maverick among them is Shamsher “Patty” Pathania (Hrithik Roshan), whose defiance is often met with stern eyes of his commanding officer Rakesh “Rocky” Jai Singh (Anil Kapoor). Patty is a lone wolf, hiding the pain of losing a fiancée in a failed mission. He is not a rebel without a cause but with a casualty. As its often is when elections are around the corner, trouble is looming over the Indian Armed Forces. The Air Dragons are pressed into aerial-action after a Mujahideen rams an explosive-laden vehicle into an Army convoy. It’s time for payback.
Once air-borne, Fighter soars into technical glory. The VFX is quite impressive and Siddharth’s set-pieces, although inspired by Hollywood actioners, are wonderfully executed. The dogfights have an anxious urgency and a palpitating sense of threat. The trouble is on the ground. Out of the cockpit, the characters crafted by Siddharth along with director-screenwriter Ramon Chibb are functional prototypes. Deepika’s Minni gets a hackneyed, feminist arc with no real piece of the action. The only flight manoeuvre she gets to do is ferrying the boys in a chopper. The performances of Ashutosh Rana as Minni’s patriarchal father and Geeta Agrawal as her muffled mother gave some meat to her otherwise trite tale. Karan Singh Grover as Sartaj Gill serves as the funny friend while Akshay Oberoi’s Bash fills in as the good Muslim. Anil Kapoor is a strong foil to Hrithik’s Patty. He gets some moments of emotion but his performance suffers because of the one-notedness of his character.
It comes as no surprise that Fighter is a Hrithik Roshan (air) show. But unlike War (2019), it doesn’t preach at the altar of the Greek God. The film presents Hrithik with a character that is vulnerable and fallible. The actor plays the hero with a restrained conviction. The villains, on the other hand, are again a bunch of ‘janab’ uttering Pakistanis. Roshan Sawhney, as the mastermind, with one red eye and a cigar between his lips, has only the style and not the substance of a Bond villain. The Pak representation isn’t unnecessarily vile but is ludicrously cliched. They are portrayed as the deceivers, the backstabbers, while the Indian Defence Forces maintain the stance of being disciplined and righteous. “We are not like them,” barks Anil, when Karan’s Taj expresses a need for aggressive retaliation.
Fighter seems to constantly undergo a tug-of-war between being patriotic and going full-blown jingoistic. Through its nationalist diatribes, it wants to attract the attention of the lowest common denominator but is unable to let go of its moral stance. At several instances the film clarifies that the country is fighting terrorism and not its unfriendly neighbour. But by the climax, the gloves are off as Patty punches the antagonist’s head with needless threats. “Kashmir is ours, you occupied it.” Ah damn, here we go again.
Starring: Hrithik Roshan, Deepika Padukone, Anil Kapoor, Karan Singh Grover, Akshay Oberoi, Sanjeeda Sheikh, Ashutosh Rana, Sharib Hashmi, Geeta Agrawal
Directed by: Siddharth Anand
Rating: 3/5 stars
(This story originally appeared on Cinema Express)