Hrithik Roshan starrer Fighter’s Indian Air Force drama promises thrill but doesn’t take off
Directed by Siddharth Anand, Fighter is the director’s third collaboration with Hrithik Roshan after Bang Bang! and War, and perhaps the weakest with an inconsistent plot, over-the-top dialogues, and jingoism. The Indian Air Force drama is no Top Gun.
Starring: Hrithik Roshan, Deepika Padukone, Anil Kapoor, Karan Singh Grover, Akshay Oberoi, Sanjeeda Sheikh, Rishabh Sawhney
For the past few years, Indian cinema has been in the grip of nationalistic fervour, with movies that have anything to do with India fighting Pakistan or avenging the death of its fallen not just rousing the audience but also setting the cash registers ringing at the box office. Fighter is cut from the same cloth.
Directed by Siddharth Anand, who comes from the high of Pathaan’s success, Fighter follows a squadron unit of the Indian Air Force as it prepares, at Srinagar Air Force Station, to fight the combined enemy of the Jaish-e-Mohammed terror outfit supported by the Pakistani Air Force. War is imminent and must be fought in the air.
The aviation thriller borrows from the attack on a convoy of CRPF personnel in Pulwama and also refers to the Balakot airstrike by the Indian Air Force inside Pakistani territory. The script also pays an ode to Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, who was held captive in Pakistan.
Pumped with nationalism, Fighter seeks to arouse patriotism in the Indian Air Force as it scrambles to foil the plans of Jaish-e-Mohammed and takes its Pakistani counterpart head on.
Sadly, the movie often transcends into the trap of hypernationalism and jingoism through over-the-top dialogues, sly commentary, and even poetry. It’s a done-to-death formula–which may help the movie earn commercial success but it’s at the cost of cinematic quality, nuance, and perhaps even diplomatic relations between the two countries.
There are several tropes in the movie—Muslim men wearing kohl, making fun of the Sardar character, and there is also a whiff of transphobia. The script is quite choppy and tries to dumb itself down at its own peril. The dialogues are so excessive you can’t roll your eyes enough. It takes the element of IAF officers sharing shayari and goes wild with it to the point that every other scene sounds like a jugalbandi.
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The movie promises to be an action thriller at the outset and does fulfil it to an extent. The scenes featuring dogfights between the Sukhoi fleets of air forces from both countries have a combative aerial action and do put you on the edge of your seat. However, the movie isn’t consistent.
The action sequences are too few and far between, and the thrill is wrapped in an excess of melodrama. The movie really wants you to cry and will do anything to make you tear up–it is as if Karan Johar is in the director’s chair.
Dialogues like “Aaj meri beti ne mere baap ko hara diya” and “Pakistan hoga tera baap, Hindustan meri maa hai” do no favour but are delivered in a way to evoke loud cheers from the audience.
The movie has Hrithik Roshan in the lead as Squadron Leader Shamsher “Patty” Pathania—one of the best IAF pilots in the country. His Achilles’ heel is his boxer’s arrogance. He knows he is the best and acts it too, overlooking everything else. However, Roshan doesn’t bother getting too deep into his character. The man looks like a Greek god statue and even sometimes acts like one, bereft of any expression. Even his masochism and self-doubt aren’t convincing.
One is just reminded of some of his earlier roles like the quadriplegic magician desiring euthanasia in Guzaarish or the avenger from Agneepath when he flexed his acting prowess. But all that’s in the past now.
Other actors are supportive at best. The only ones who shine are Anil Kapoor as the stringent Group Captain Rocky and Deepika Padukone as Squadron Leader Minal “Minni” Rathore. Unfortunately, Padukone’s role as a helicopter pilot isn’t as fleshed out as it ought to be, but she still manages to deliver.
Newbie Rishabh Sawhney as the Jaish-e-Mohammed mastermind tries his best as the Rambo-style villain but is pulled down by dialogues of unconvincing hate for India.
The plot too is weak and inconsistent. There’s an entire section of the movie set in Hyderabad that doesn’t seem necessary, and Roshan’s crisis of character lacks depth.
Fighter shows Padukone dealing with parental rejection for being a woman in the IAF. But the movie tries too hard to make the point that women can also fly. The point was already made a decade ago.
Besides, women constitute 13.69% of the IAF’s workforce, as per the Ministry of Defence, and 15% of all pilots in the country are women—the highest proportion in the world.
Music composers Sanchit Balhara and Ankit Balhara infuse Fighter with a nationalistic score that amplifies the patriotism projected in the movie. However, the songs by Vishal-Shekhar are pretty forgettable.
What works for Fighter is the production design which does justice to its massive Rs 250-crore budget. The lineup of Sukhoi-30s on the runway and the neat and video-game-like VFX are at the core of the movie’s thriller sequences. While there’s just one action sequence of hand-to-hand combat at the end, it is well-choreographed and doesn’t disappoint.
Fighter promises thrill but is never able to reach its zenith. Inconsistent plot, over-the-top dialogues, below-average jokes, and jingoistic hypernationalism clip the wings of this Air Force drama.
Rating: 2/5
Edited by Swetha Kannan