A revenge mission that is less a film, more of an advertisement
Rajit Kapur plays the prime minister in Uri. Best remembered as truth-seeking sleuth Byomkesh Bakshi in the long-running TV serial of the same name, the veteran finds an understated grace as he mulls over decisions about war and the mothers of his soldiers.
It is this man who signs off on everything, you see. In a movie about a successful military operation released in an election year, this attribution of credit cannot quite be considered coincidental.
Little, in fact, is left to chance in debutant director Aditya Dhar’s slick war film about an unchallenging revenge mission. So valorous and well-prepared is the Indian Army that the cartoonishly hook-nosed enemy never stands a chance.
Take Vicky Kaushal, playing gung-ho Major Vihaan Shergill, a well-built jawan with a perpetually puffed-up chest. He decides strategy, outthinks intelligence agents and leads men into battle. He fights like a heroic wrestler, all brave moves and war cries. His head may be weighed down by traditional clichés of ill mothers and widowed sisters, but on his lips are either orders or screams.
Meanwhile, Paresh Rawal discusses artillery attacks with the tenderness of a ghazal-loving uncle instructing novice chefs about the slowcooking of a leg of lamb. “Halke halke badhaate rahiyega,” he says, about increasing firing across the Line of Control.
His character is visibly modelled on current
National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. Rawal makes him a canny, cellphone-shattering man of action, one who spots talented interns and gives them too much to do. But the reliably fine actor makes it seem natural. Even lines like, “Son, you may have just won us the war,” don’t set your teeth on edge when he says them.
Uri is a decent-looking film, but while the action is convincing, the proceedings are dull. The film doesn’t thump its chest as hard as we’re used to, but keeping its shirt on doesn’t make it an actual movie. There is no tension; the attempts to manufacture breathlessness are childish.
Watching Uri, I wondered about the point of such a selfcongratulatory film, an uninteresting depiction of a bestcase scenario. Then, as Indian soldiers donned bright green night-vision goggles and strafed expertly outside a terrorist compound, it became clearer. This might be a boring film, but it’s a comforting one.
Our military is the hero. Our neighbour, clearly the villain.
The target is unprepared, outnumbered and out of bullets. The Pakistani police, like our cops throughout the history of Indian cinema, arrive late to the scene. The Indian Army, on the other hand, is efficiency itself. Uri is therefore less film and more advertisement, a wishful fantasy. It made me wish that Rajit Kapur, a soft-spoken man with no resemblance to Vivek Oberoi, was indeed our prime minister.