Movie Review | Yodha: Jingoistic Jingbang of a Griller

Starring: Sidharth Malhotra, Raashii Khanna, Disha Patani, Kritika Bharatwaj, Ronit Roy, S.M. Zahir

Direction: Sagar Ambre, Pushkar Ojha

Short of requiring the naïve or the enthusiastic to stand up and salute in unalloyed commitment to the Tricolour, which in the beginning was up in smoke in the air, and going the whole hog with declaratory fervour: Azaad rahe, aabad rahe, tu lehrate rahe Tiranga,” film-makers Sagar Ambre and Pushkar Ojha push and push hard. Suddenly, one gets the feel that the patriotic spirit is the latest merchandise available at the Bollywood website. Dharma Productions can professionally smell the spirit. So, you have them all getting together. The enthusiast is often not discouraged by minor details, logic, or grammar. Here even the basics of commercial cinema are victims. The director duo is “up in arms” literally and figuratively and spares no punches to match the ‘Gadar’ test of pitch, jingoism, and high watt daredevilry. The genre is getting tiresome, self-defeatist and hollow. To step from halo to hollow requires Bollywood to march in.

It is worrisome that our dream-sellers are going about singing paeans and extolling the already high-octave spirit of the patriotic Bharatiya. Yes, it is no longer a fashion to loudly declare the three-word mantra of ‘Mera Bharat Mahan’ for obvious reasons, but the feel and spirit is all over.

So much time, money, and resources go into the making of a commercial film. When a well-acknowledged business house with ever-expanding verticals goes into investing in a project, quality must at least engage the activity from inspiration to final product. You search for it all through the overstretched 133 minutes, all in vain. Further to be seated in a “high-end” multiplex with horrendous facilities reflects yet another suspect facet of the film’s marketing. So audacious is the lounge that the casting in-charge and the decision-makers seem to have settled for what is available rather than what is good.

A special task force is organised by the GoI which is over the regular three forces. This is established by martyr Surender Katyal (Ronit Roy) who, like the proverbial milk vendor, arrives early, delivers the seemingly essential, and makes a quick exit. Also, he bloods his son with the fervour of preparedness to love and serve the nation. Jr Katyal Arun (Siddharth Malhotra) is the son — nay sunny of this Project Tiranga. As part of the passengers in an international flight hijacked to Amritsar, he defies orders and fails to bring home senior scientist Anuj Nair (S.M. Zaheer). Court-martialled for insubordination, Arun slowly sees the withering of his team members who voluntarily give up being part of the task force.

The hijack drama also leads to serious marital differences with wife Priyamwadha (Rashi Khanna). The mid-air scenes do not satiate the viewer who has a surfeit serving of “mid-air” thrills — Tejas, Gunjan Saxena, and Fighter. At half-time, our Yodha is fighting frustration, suspension, and possible divorce. The remaining film is about yet another hijack drama: This time with Laila (Disha Patni), Tania Sharma (Kritika Bharatwaj), S.N. Dingra (Chitranjan Tripathi) and the co-pilot Ahmed Khalid (Mikhail Yawalkar). This time around, the hijack is planned to coincide with talks between the heads of states of India and Pakistan. Who are the hijackers is not known. In fact, the first suspect is Arun Katyal — too bizarre a coincidence that he is involved in not one but two hijacks.

The convoluted passage from here to the climax simply fails the credibility test. Even the action scenes are far from convincing. The portrayal of the hijackers suffers from template suffocation. The film depends largely on Siddharth Malhotra, who matches John Abraham in consistency — a single expression through most part of the film so much so that he has to declare: “Iss film ka hero mein hoon.”

This patriotic spread of bravado and muscle suffers multiple hijacks with no Yodha with the wherewithal to salvage it.