'Fighter' movie review: Hrithik Roshan, Deepika Padukone fly high, but film doesn't

A still from Fighter

Movie: Fighter
U/A: Action, thriller
Dir: Siddharth Anand
Cast: Hrithik Roshan, Deepika Padukone, Anil Kapoor
Rating: 2.5/5

A line from a song in Fighter goes, Zameen walon ko samajh nahi aani, meri Heer aasmani (People on the ground will not understand my love for the sky), which underlines the film's theme about a group of Indian Air Force officers' transcendental love for the nation. However, it seems to convey the opposite. Instead, it succinctly articulates how one feels after watching this patriotic, laced with jingoistic provocations, outing. You do understand their love, but not feel it.

Exactly a year ago, on January 25, director Siddharth Anand brought to the screens a rousing action drama - Pathaan - that appeared as a timely reclamation of patriotism from the hyper-nationalistic sentiment that has engulfed the country. It was about a bruised but not beaten soldier returning to duty to fight an ex-army man whose lover, his nation, had betrayed him. The expectations from the director, who has a record of earning more than R1,000 crore globally, combined with Hrithik Roshan and Deepika Padukone's star power, a reliable ensemble, and, of course, the spectacular treatment of the action genre that he has now mastered, were naturally high when he returned with another dose of ‘save the nation'. But the result isn't even half as stirring. Fighter is shiny throughout, with ample beauty to marvel at in the form of its lead stars as well as the skies they conquer. Roshan brings his inherent gorgeousness, and to his credit, he fills this mannequin exterior with vulnerability and drama to the best of his abilities. Sadly, he does more for the film than it does for him. The screenplay by Ramon Chibb, who co-wrote the story with Anand, fails to amplify the drama needed to ground a film, which relies heavily on fight and flight.

There is an obvious limitation to a film in this genre. When your characters fight it out aboard jets and helicopters, the audience rarely feels the aggression of the battle as opposed to in a hand-to-hand combat, where every punch becomes an expression of the emotion that the characters are going through. While jets racing over one another and occasionally dropping missiles can make for stunning visuals, the physical distance between the protagonist and antagonist (in broader terms) creates a sense of detachment in the audience.

This makes the on-the-ground drama even more important. The stakes need to skyrocket before one cheers for rockets in the sky. And that's where Fighter fails again. The film just feels like a series of aerial action blocks with a story stretched for two hours and 40 minutes too long. A few highly-qualified Indian Air Force officers are brought together to combat terrorism inhabiting the neighbouring country. They are meant to develop a strong bond of trust with each other before they can take on the enemy together. The foundation of this endearing group camaraderie is built on bad jokes, shared national sentiment, and the brewing romance between its leading characters - Roshan's Patty and Padukone's Minni. The friendship and the romance emerge as Patty's driving force when he returns to redeem himself from his past fallacies, but the unimaginative writing coupled with forgettable dialogues by Hussain Dalal and Abbas Dalal barely leaves room for any inter-personal relationship to grow. It is heartbreaking to see two of the most dramatic and spectacularly looking actors barely sharing any chemistry. The actors look awkward around each other. While Padukone still seems to pull all the strings possible, Roshan constantly appears restrained around her, as if not convinced about falling in love with her. Individually, both actors anchor the film at crucial emotional points, displaying their impeccable command over the craft. But together, they make for a platonic friendship at best, which the film could have even done without. On one hand, love doesn't have much sway over the story, on the other hand hate feels like an empty smoke emanating through the entire duration, riding more on provocations than profoundness. Patty and his team fight a robotesque enemy, whose hate for India is described only by the word ‘terrorist'. Who is this guy? Why is he on a mission? Anand and his writers aren't interested in exploring these questions. All they want is to trigger the hate button in you while continuously amplifying the enemy's monstrosity, to invoke sympathy for the armed forces. When the hate is not enough, the makers resort to the laziest trope in Indian cinema and also the guaranteed way of getting the patriot certificate in the country - Pakistan bashing.

Fighter appears confused throughout, whether it stands against terrorism or Pakistan, by first iterating, "India is not against Pakistani people," and later screaming at a terrorist, "If we start replying to your attacks, the country will become India-occupied Pakistan." During a promotional interview two days before the film's release, Anand was asked about these dialogues in the film. To which he had replied, "The film will give you context for these scenes. Jingoism is a matter of perspective. I call it nationalistic." Perhaps that's all that one needs to know about this Fighter's flight.