07 November,2021 09:11 AM IST | Mumbai | Mayank Shekhar
A still from Sooryavanshi
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It is kinda distressing that, along with all the action promised and dutifully delivered, one must also, on occasion, have to contend with a worldview - so far as this film's story plus screenplay are concerned. Both separately credited to Rohit Shetty, apart from opening credit for producer, director, and "action designed by"! What's this worldview, exactly?
Firstly, PR pap about how the repealing of Article 370 (special autonomy) in Jammu & Kashmir led to the end of all cross-border infiltration in the Himalayan Indian state.
Two, that for all the loathe foisted upon a full cornucopia of terrible, although piously driven, Muslims in this movie - Bilal, Ahmed, Riyaz, Hafiz, Mukhtar, Ansari, Aziz, Kader, Usmani, Rafique, countless others - there is indeed a token Muslim man, or two, who isn't driven by the urge to ruin India. Those are still Indian Muslims (mercifully). Rest are Pak-sent/sponsored nuts.
That I should even mention the above is sheer disservice to the purpose behind this film, though. That's waited in the wings for a couple of years now, patiently seated through the pandemic, in order to be the first Bollywood release since the espionage thriller Bell Bottom (2021), that also starred Akshay Kumar. Which is of course to suggest Akki, the superhero, isn't quite a precious screen commodity, as it were.
But this is a movie by the "festival director" Shetty foremost, that comes with its own obvious spin - apart from a fast and furious pile up of SUVs, Fortuner ("Bhagyavaan") and Scorpio ("Bicchoo") rotating in mid-air, crashing over each other. The word festival in the context of cinema is usually applied to art-house, the world over.
In India, it takes the shape of mad, mainstream, consistently cartoonish stuff designed for a holiday release, of which this country has one too many - top of the pops being the Diwali cracker, of course.
That, in this case, along with the toys in motion, stars the ageless boys, as it were - Ajay Devgn (as a drag-racing Singham), and Ranveer Singh (as Simbaa, breaking through the brick wall), standing shoulder to shoulder with Sooryavanshi (Kumar, coming down a helicopter), in a curious cop universe, that defies what cops are like, and what the universe must do to them.
Each superstar's onscreen entry alone makes for a series of âmoney shots', as they say. "It doesn't matter whose is bigger," says Singh in the film. Either way he's the only one actually acting here - putting on a thick Marathi twang. The other two are simply being their cool, '90s selves. Paisa vasool?
Cut to Katrina Kaif, killing it softly with the Viju Shah remixed number, âTip tip barsa paani'. Pro tip: Know exactly what you've walked in for. Which is neither Katrina nor a movie that merits a review. But a collective, tribal, theatrical experience, with the public primed for every dialogue, repartee, bad joke and good blow-up job.
Sounds of machine guns and fist punches are embedded into the background score, as if they were compositions of their own. As are loud hoots and claps. You can hear both from the speakers, and those around you. The one-liners land, because the junta is simply waiting to lap it up. The âhelicopter shots' work, because the context is just about enough for it to.
This concert like energy is infectious on a first day show, with a long line outside the box-office, because that's what popular cinema, by definition, is.
It's been so long we've experienced this, that I accidentally stepped into the wrong auditorium in the multiplex. The movie started after the interval. It obviously ended with the climax and closing credits. This is when I figured I may have missed the first half altogether. Requested the multiplex manager to allow me in again. He generously did. And the film started all over.
Until then, did I even know for sure that Sooryavanshi is about a bunch of terrorist âsleeper cells', reactivated after the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts, with RDX buried under the earth since? No.
That the three top cops must save India, from a series of blasts, mimicking '93? I guess. Does it matter? No. What was I staring at otherwise? Don't know. Would these crazy cops save the world, regardless? Of course. God, I've missed this. Don't take it away again!
