A war movie that falls flat on its face
Movie Reivew: Paltan Rating: 6/10 Reviewer: Fakir Hassen
EXACTLY two decades ago filmmaker JP Dutta’s magnum opus Border, based on the Battle of Longewala during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, was a huge international hit, including for its music.
His attempt to relive that glory with another war story in Paltan falls far short on both counts.
Paltan (Platoon in English) is based on a largely untold tale of bravery and patriotism during the 1965 war between India and another neighbour, China, at Nathu La pass – a strategic border area between India and Tibet. Since it is a biopic about the soldiers who bravely challenged the might of the Chinese army, their fate is easily established by some elementary
research, but Dutta ensures that the climax is a thrilling, actionpacked tribute to those heroes.
Unfortunately, that is the only good that can be said about the film despite some serious attempts by seasoned actors such as Arjun Rampal (Lieutenant-Colonel Rai Singh) and Sonu Sood (Major Bishen Sing) to inject camaraderie among the troops as
their leaders.
The end result is that Dutta fails to develop not only the brotherhood among the men in the isolated area, but also in the flashbacks about their relationships with their families and loves ones back home.
Veteran Jackie Shroff overacts as their commander from a distance, and the Chinese officers are shown as bumbling buffoons rather than fear-inducing fanatics, chanting “Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai” all the time while wielding heavy artillery menacingly.
Perhaps Dutta should have left the screenplay and story writing to someone else, and concentrated only on his direction to reprise the success of Border. Only extremely patriotic viewers will consider Paltan to be a worthy addition to the genre of war biopics.