Movie Review: War
Rating: 3/5
Language: Hindi
Cast: Hrithik Roshan as Kabir Luthra
Tiger Shroff as Khalid Khan
Vaani Kapoor as Naina
Ashutosh Rana as Colonel Luthra
Anupriya Goenka as Aditi
Soni Razdan as Khalid's mother
Director: Siddharth Anand
Music: Vishal–Shekhar (Songs), Sanchit and Ankit Balhara (Score)
Cinematography: Benjamin Jasper
Production company: Yash Raj Films
Screenplay: Shridhar Raghavan, Siddharth Anand
Produced by: Aditya Chopra
Written by: Abbas Tyrewala
War speaks the language of violence and was ironically released on 2 October 2019, the 150 anniversary of the apostle of non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi.
The movie with a hefty budget of 200 crores has been filmed in exotic locations from Malta, Italy to Marrakesh to the snow clad Alps besides some prime Indian locations. Cars, bikes, yachts, planes, high speed chases in all of them and a musical score that revves it all up a few notches will entertain action buffs.
International choreographers from Hollywood and Korea were employed to design the action sequences. Director Siddharth Anand had stated earlier, “We want to push the benchmark of action movies that are made in our country. So, we are bringing some of the biggest action choreographers together to design some of the most outlandish and visually-spectacular sequences.” Game of Thrones and Avengers are among the movies choreographers SeaYoung Oh, Parvez Shaikh, Franz Spilhaus and Paul Jennings have to their credit.
Add to that the songs choreographed with moves by two of the best dancers in Bollywood and its ‘paisa vasool’ (return on investment) for fans of Tiger Shroff and Hrithik Roshan. The re-hashing of old Bollywood numbers ‘Jai jai Shiv Shankar’ (unrecognizable) and ‘Ghungroo’ (well done) is eclipsed by the smooth moves of the much awaited Tiger-Hrithik dance-off.
The story starts well with an Indian soldier Kabir (Hrithik Roshan) going rogue and killing his handler instead of the intended target. Khalid (Tiger Shroff) his protegee’ is tasked with bringing in his mentor and ensuring that justice is served.
Vaani Kapoor has a small role, thankfully. Ashutosh Rana is his usual grim ambivalent self and it lends well to the mystery behind his role.
The story takes you back and forth into flashback and real time and is engaging. Fight sequences, dances, music it’s all happening and War is action packed. There is ‘masala’ added by a deft chef and then there is ‘masala overdose’ by a dense chef and that is the problem with this movie too.
Apart from some set action pieces where the heroes show off their six packs and bulging muscles, the scenes where they pound each other to pulp but still come back kicking make it an overkill. Some of the high-flying(pun intended) action sequences are beyond logical comprehension.
The story-line leaves a lot to be desired. A lot of it sounds like political propaganda done with a heavy hand thus leaving a bad taste despite the heroic efforts by the stars. The twists are actually substantial and keep up the element of surprise till the very end and could have worked well with some tight edits to the storyline.
Leave logic at home with a sitter, get yourself a large popcorn and sit back to enjoy the thrills, spills, twists and turns of this action flick.