
For all those Nandu ads back in the day, Akshay Kumar sure smokes a lot in Sky Force. He offers a cigarette to a Pakistani prisoner of war and then takes it back to steal a hit when the latter refuses to cooperate (“It’s harmful for your health”). Like a hardboiled detective, he puffs away while reopening files or being existential by the window.
Not just him; in every other scene, other characters too can be seen burning away the minutes. It made me wonder, why? Is it because the film is set in the 60s, the era of the Marlboro Man, and that was the makers’ way of being historically accurate? Or was it to make dry scenes seem intense? I mean, even the word “Gumdrops” can sound like a piece of evidence if said after a puff and a pause.
Sky Force, touted to be a high-octane aerial actioner full of good old deshbhakti, is a drag and not just of the smoking kind. It is so by-the-book that even the revelation in its climax comes from one.
A brilliant but rebellious pilot who doesn’t go by the rules, slow-motion shots of Air Force officers running towards their jets, singer B Praak belting about sacrificing for the motherland—I could very well be describing recent dogfight dramas like Fighter (2024) and Tejas (2023). Sky Force is an unnecessary addition to the list. Another narrative nosedive, another one biting the dust.
After revolutionising commercial air travel in Sarfira (2024), Akshay Kumar dons the uniform as Wing Commander Kumar Om Ahuja, who leads an Air Force team called Tigers.
The lone wolf of the pack is T Vijaya, aka Tabby (Veer Pahariya), who, we are constantly told, is a “rulebreaker” and a “madman,” but all he does is puppy around Akshay’s Om, calling him his mentor.
He is more cutesy than gutsy. Retaliating to an attack on their base, the Tigers vow to give it back to the Pakis. They execute an airstrike, the country’s first ever, on Pakistan’s “most secure” and “impenetrable” Sargodha airbase. It’s a smooth and successful mission, but Tabby goes MIA. The Army and the government are apathetic, but Om takes it upon himself to find out what happened to him.
Sky Force is based on India’s first-ever airstrike during the 1965 Indo-Pak war. Both Om and Tabby are modelled after real-life officers O P Taneja and Ajjamada B Devaiah, the latter the only Indian Air Force officer to be given the Maha Vir Chakra posthumously. But the film never feels like a fresh story, exploring a new facet of aerial warfare. It is as templated as any other war film, with expected beats.
Tabby has a pregnant wife, Geeta (Sara Ali Khan), who is awaiting his return; a minor character dies during an airstrike in order to give some emotional propulsion to the incoming payback; there is chest-beating nationalism as Akshay Kumar blares “Tera baap, Hindustan (Your dad, India).” From every direction the film urges you to make you feel something—adrenaline, grief, patriotism—but all this noise falls on ears numbed by recent nationalist narratives.
The movie is production house Maddock Films’—known for their horror-comedy releases—first foray into nationalism cinema. Since it’s Maddock, there is some innovation in some scenes, like a first-person POV of an aerial attack that adds to the thrill. The dogfights are engaging, but the immersion is broken because of patchy VFX. The second half flips into an investigative drama, which could have been interesting if it had not been rushed and oddly tied together.
After a slew of underwhelming films, this time again Akshay Kumar is nothing more than Akshay Kumar while playing the role of K O Ahuja. His performance feels like an amalgamation of his characters from Airlift (2016) and Sarfira (2024). Because of the star’s towering presence in the movie, every other actor only operates under his shadow. He is constantly being looked up to as their saviour.
The vileness, though, has been dialled down. There is, but still less “ghar mein ghus ke maarenge (We will infiltrate and kill)” and more Congress-era the-Indian-Army-respects-its-enemies narrative. Admirably, a Pakistani soldier (played by Sharad Kelkar) is humanised. The female characters, though, are expectedly ignored. Sara Ali Khan only exists to impart sentimentality after Tabby goes missing, and a seasoned actor like Nimrat Kaur doesn’t get anything more than designer jewellery. Sky Force is a film made only to cash in on the Republic Day weekend. An old wine, in an even older bottle.
Film: Sky Force
Director: Sandeep Kewlani and Abhishek Anil Kapur
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Veer Pahariya, Sara Ali Khan and Nimrat Kaur