Dunkirk is the best war movie I have seen in the past couple
of years. In recent times, The Ghazi Attack and Raazi were brilliant war movies
coming out of India, especially the latter.
One aspect where Dunkirk and Raazi really scored was that
its protagonists, soldiers and spies, were portrayed as real human beings. They
are courageous and duty bound, but with their vulnerabilities and personal conflicts.
Their opponents need to be killed if required, but are not necessarily evil.
They are also doing their duty, as the Pakistani army character played Vicky
Kaushal in Raazi said. The final underlying message is that eventually everyone
loses in a war.
Uri- The Surgical Strike, does not aspire to unearth these myriad
layers of human emotions or reach for such levels of nuance. It also indulges
in jingoistic chest thumping in around three scenes(probably retrofitted to
cater to certain audiences), that generally plagues Indian war movies. But
generally the film is focused, to the point and holds on its own. For a debut,
director Aditya Dhar can be proud of his first creation.
Major Vihaan Shergill(Vicky Kaushal) is a battle hardened
army officer of the Indian special forces, with an expertise in neutralizing
terrorists in insurgency areas. After a successful operation in Manipur he
takes up a desk job in Delhi to take care of his ailing mother(Swaroop
Sampath). The way Kaushal has beefed up his body for the role, worked on his
overall personality and then backed it with excellent acting, both in action
and emotional sequences, prove again that he is one of the best things to have
happened to Hindi cinema in the past few years, along with the likes of
Nawazuddin and Raj Kumar Rao. These are the actors I would pay to watch in a
multiplex, even with exceptional content on Netflix, Prime et al, that keep me
busy.
One wonders if Kaushal is the same actor who played the
polite Pakistani army officer in Raazi, Sanjay Dutt's friend in Sanju, or the dimwit lover in Manmarziyan. Of course
we still remember his roles in Masaan and Raman Raghav. Exceptional choice and
variety of roles within a short span of time.
Major Shergill’s brother-in-law Karan Kashyap(Mohit Raina)
is also an officer of the special forces, who is martyred in the URI attack.
Watching Raina as Lord Shiva on television, I had told my wife that he can do
action roles in films. In the film he comes across as convincing as Kaushal as an
army man and acts fine as well. Hindi films should see more of him. Paresh
Rawal plays National Security Advisor Ajit Doval(name changed). Though he
delivers as ever, I felt the writer/director should have designed the character
a bit different. Doval from his interviews looks extremely cool and composed.
The voice is not strong, but articulate and decisive. An NSA should be like
that. A close character was played by Danny Denzongpa in Baby. Rawal here is
generally tense, worried and hurried.
We have a Manohar Parrikar(uncanny lookalike) and a
Modi(Rajit Kapoor) well to join all the dots. Swaroop Sampat expectedly nails
the role of a patient with Alzheimer’s. The characters of Yami Gautam and Kirti
Kulhari are not built enough. The latter was excellent in Pink, so such actors
should be used to their full potential. There is the ubiquitous Sikh army friend,
Muslim army men, an old veteran officer who knows the terrain well, a general
and so on. A geeky intern at DRDO who apparently is better than the entire organization,
to underline the entrepreneurial and intelligent youth of the nation. Indian
spies in Pakistan, a buffoon-like ISI chief and so on. Maybe a couple of
characters less and the stories of the others articulated better, would have
done better justice to the script.
The strongest part of the movie is its technical brilliance,
tight and slick. The war sequences do actually look like a war zone. The
bullets, grenades, blasts, insurgency locations, army personnel and terrorists
look the way they should. Realistic but not over the top. The cinematography,
especially during the night war scenes is top notch. The VFX supports well. The
film however suffers from clichés. The ailing mother, widowed sister, wife of
martyred husband looking for redemption, we have seen those things many times
before. Although the surgical strike was a revenge of the URI attacks from the
Indian perspective, war films should refrain from being individual sagas of
revenge. The reasons why URI would not be the best war film made in India,
though it had the potential.
Coming to the political question, is the movie propagandist,
made to support the BJP during the election year, as some folks are alleging? I
do not think so.
Maybe the director is a bit of a Modi fan and the current
political disposition, hence certain characters and sequences got more screen
time than required in a war movie. Maybe Rawal who is a Member of Parliament in
real life, had some say and inputs. The film "may" build a positive
perception of the current government. However no one can deny the role of
someone like Ajit Doval in a strike like this. He has similar accomplishments
under many governments. Narendra Modi or Manohar Parikkar as defense minister
also deserve credit for their decision making. So if a film maker wants to credit
them, it is fine.
It is true that contrary to general perception, surgical
strikes have happened in the past as well. India did take the first-offensive
route before, especially during 1971, unlike what was said in the movie, that
this never happened and can happen only in "New India"! Movies should
be made out of those incidents too, where say Indira Gandhi or other PMs, politicians
and bureaucrats can be given due credit.
So though the movie shows the current government in positive
light, it would be unfair to say that the film was made only for political
propaganda. It has a good production value, top notch technical elements with a
prime focus on the courage and sacrifice of the Indian armed forces, that
qualify it as a fine piece of cinema, in spite of flaws.
3.5 out of 5 for Uri.
