With Lok Sabha elections around the corner, for film reviewers, every other week comes with a history lesson. We are being bombarded with either hagiographies or hack jobs. For the theatrical masses there is Main Atal Hoon and Swatantrya Veer Savarkar, softcore and hardcore biographies of nationalist icons, as per your preference. For the seemingly intellectual OTT viewer, here comes Ae Watan Mere Watan, an assembly-line manufactured tribute to our freedom fighters. It is a compilation of trite ideas from all possible Independence struggle films. A film isn’t about a topic but treatment. Ae Watan Mere Watan, though, seems to be content with just being a run-of-the-mill biopic.
The film, as per the makers, is inspired by the story of Usha Mehta, the convener of Secret Congress Radio which helped in mobilising the Quit India Movement of 1942. Usha (played by Sara Ali Khan) is enamoured by the principles of Mahatma Gandhi. This is in sharp contrast with the opinions of her anglophile father, a judge in the Raj. The country is brimming with calls for a final war against the British and Usha, along with college mates Kaushik (Abhay Verma) and Fahad (Sparsh Shrivastava), houses sentiments of inquilab (revolt). After the British crack down on the Movement and arrest Gandhi and other leaders, Usha and friends put together a radio to transmit messages of rebellion and unity. “Karo ya maro (do or die),” they parrot after anything remotely rousing occurs.
Now this could have been a deep dive into the psyche of Usha Mehta, who attended a protest march when she was just eight. But what we get is a banal scene where a young Usha witnesses her teacher being battered by a British soldier. He utters “Vande Mataram” before going unconscious. Almost all sequences have only one way to show how zaalim (cruel) the goras (whites) are. In a scene, a British cop even says, “Get off me you filthy Indian”. When an older Usha runs with the tricolour flag in her hand, you know that quintessential Brit baton is on the way. Usha gets hit on the feet and then on her head as the flag falls on the dusty ground. The screen screams with patriotism.
Most period-dramas, by showcasing the happenings of the past, try to speak to the current times. Ae Watan Mere Watan merely hints at themes of thought control and curbing freedom of speech. It is a history chapter in a textbook, reduced to bullet points. The plot is predictable, the screenplay is threadbare at max, the visuals have a sepia-filter to give it that dusty, historical look and the acting is out of a school skit. The film made me laugh when it was supposed to move me, yawn when it was supposed to thrill me and I almost got up from my chair when it should have engrossed me.
Powerful performances can, at times, pull up a drowning narrative. In Ae Watan Mere Watan, it’s quite the opposite. After being the weakest link in last week’s Murder Mubarak, Sara Ali Khan is back to ham her way through scenes. She over-emotes, over-emphasises and is the most over-the-top in this OTT film. I don’t know if it’s just me but there is a hint of a smile on Sara’s face, as if she is enjoying an inside joke, whenever she is trying to be intense. In this tale of freedom struggle, she struggles the most. I expected Emraan Hashmi as Ram Manohar Lohia to come to the rescue but he too gets wound up in the ludicrous seriousness of this film. Before you know it, he is delivering inspiring speeches which have a strange affinity with fire terms, Azaadi ki aag, azaadi ki mashaal, azaadi ka jwalamukhi (The fire of freedom, the torch of freedom, the volcano of freedom).
Ae Watan Mere Watan only skims the surface when it comes to the freedom fighter at its centre. It is satisfied in showing just one facet of her personality: a patriotic young woman, who defied her dad, sacrificed her future and left her lover, all for the country’s freedom. The real Usha Mehta, after India got Independence, gave an interview in her later years and spoke about how the country was faring. “India has survived as a democracy and even built a good industrial base,” she said. “Still, it is not the India of our dreams.”
Cast: Sara Ali Khan, Emraan Hashmi, Sparsh Shrivastava, Abhay Verma
Directed by: Kannan Iyer
Rating: 2/5 stars
(This story originally appeared on Cinema Express)