WAR - Bring it On !


WAR 2019
by
Siddharth Anand




Pakistan is evil, Indian Muslim is loyal. Some Indians are compromised, plastic surgery works like magic. Indian defence satellite is the target, Indian soldiers on the border would be blindsided should that happen.
The main terrorist in the film claims ‘God does not work much for him’ – making him a secular jihadi, and RAW cannot have enough of a rookie whose dad had betrayed the Indian cause, but whose mother had rang up  to betray the traitor. Is not such strong emotional tangle, reason enough to disqualify someone from a job which requires total immersion and where the country cannot afford to take a chance ? But then….
All this pseudo-emotional drama is set in a universe that makes one fondly recall Jason Bourne. The leading duo is super-fit, nimble-footed and totally stone-faced. Surprisingly, all of which works, because you do need your superheroes to be unreal who can flout the laws of physics and limitations of biology.
Hrithik Roshan is a sight to behold. He now speaks with the confidence of a top dog. Tiger is a thing of beauty, always earnest to the core. The villains hardly exist as the love-fest between the director and the duo never ends. Ashutosh Rana , for some reason, gives the vibes of a bad guy, but turns out he was just overdoing it for no reason. Anupriya Goenka gets her presence registered, more effectively than Vani Kapoor,who has turned out to be quite a waste of potential.
War works because its special effects work, chases are fine, action is not overdone and Tiger and Hrithik are not eyesores. War works becauseit satisfies the lust for pure action films unlaced with romance and comedy, although a bit of oomph would not have hurt matters. But since both the actors are big hits with kids, maybe the makers avoided steaming it up, and probably with good result, because 150 minutes is already too long a runtime.

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