Bhuj – The Pride of India : Maajhi Ekdum Satakli
In 1974, Kishore Kumar acted, produced, directed, sang, wrote, and scored Badhti ka Naam Daadhi. Before the film starts, Kishore himself comes on the screen, addresses the audience, and says as below (a loose translation):
“Dear Friends and cinema fans
This insignificant writer, producer-director, actor, playback singer and your friend Kishore Kumar greets you. Before you see this movie, there is a nonsensical request. The absurd request is that while watching this movie, please do not trouble your competent brain. Please don’t start thinking about what happened, why it happened and when it happened. whatever happened, happened. Hukka happened. This director caught some unusual thoughts in these flights of imagination and made a Bhel Puri of them. If you like this Bhel Puri, then think that I made this film. And while eating this Bhel Puri, if you get indigestion, then the film was made by you. We will meet again.
Titles start”
This small “warning” can be seen from 00:00:00 to 00:00:54 https://youtu.be/ERfITdLGl_c
What’s the connection? Simple, The Golden words of the creative genius of Kishore Kumar should have been the statutory warning and disclaimer shown at the beginning of this film. Instead, you get this baloney (left), a sorry excuse for a movie – as if someone wrote this script while smoking some high-grade Acid.
There’s an old saying, “the more things change, the more they remain the same”. The Indian film industry’s track record for War Films is usually not that great (For more, please refer to my book Lights Camera War: Indian War Films 1950-2020 https://amzn.to/3y5pSyz )
Gunjan Saxena, the 2020 film had a brilliant line where the father tells the doubting daughter: “You do your job properly . Patriotism will follow automatically”. Ajay Devgun, the producer (and many others before him and many who will surely follow in the future), clearly forgot this line. They have gone the American route of Excess = Success (and the hell with reality or even a small modicum of it).
Thus, you have “BHUJ: The PRIDE of India”, whose only objective throughout the film is to capture Ajay DevGUN’s permanent scowl on screen. With him and Sanjay Dutt around, the Pakistani Army and Pakistani Air Force stand no chance. The overall “heroism” of Ajay DevGUN drowns the actual story of the local women helping and bringing the base back onstream. Consider some of the stuff that he can do.
Track Pakistani spies and take them on single-handed. How? By wearing goggles at night (does it contain some secret gadget that we don’t know?)
He can explode unexploded bombs simultaneously and walk the length of the runaway without batting an eyelid. How do you defuse unexploded bombs? Okay, here’s the answer. Connect them all in series with cord, light the cord (left below) and walk away as the bombs explode (in succession or parallels – who cares). Unexploded bombs solved.
He is the only person who fires the anti-aircraft gun – he is, after all the equivalent of the usual four-man crew – while the rest of the personnel are running around in panic .
He can motivate locals to help him and the Nation. Even if they don’t listen, his secret ace in the hole is Sonakshi Sinha, who can eviscerate a leopard and then break into a bhajan. They will even dance and beat the drums with him .
His greatest feat is of course to use the back of a truck as the nose gear for an An12 which has lost its nose gear. The real-life Vijay Karnik must have been squirming or laughing his guts off or reaching out for a stiff drink to soothe his nerves.
These foreigners are always copying our original Indian stunts. See this Niss
an Ad . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drpRud0yvs4
In between, you have a local village leader who can single headedly baffle the Pakistanis and, in the end, take them on single-handed. Are you kidding? That’s Sanjay Dutt, and he is enough for a company – or is that a battalion – of Pakistanis! The Pakistanis say “janaab” to each other and scowl at the camera while making grand plans to destroy Bhuj airbase. An An12 that can take about 40 troops takes 400 troops, who hold on to straps as if they are in a Mumbai local train.
Everyone is probably wondering – why this obsession with “reality”? It’s a film. You can show anything .
Someone told me, “you will tolerate Tom Cruise climbing Burj Khalifa or walking along the wing of an A400 transport and getting inside it, while that plane is taking off, but you will blame any Indian movie that shows something similar”. My answer ? “I can’t tolerate Tom Cruise or ANYONE doing any nonsense.”
Hey, Hold One. Go back.
Yes. Remember the disclaimer at the beginning of the movie? Fiction? No harm to any religion or community? Salute to the bravery of the military? if this is a salute, I wonder …. I also wonder what the role of the woman who acted as Karnik’s wife was. Did her dialogues land on the editing floor?
Oh. I completely forgot. Norah Fatehi is an Indian Muslim who is prepared to die for India as she wants to avenge the death of her brothers. No – she doesn’t break into a dance – risqué or otherwise. She shows her acting chops – or lack of it. If the producer keeps scowling at the camera throughout the movie, do you think anyone will act?
The real heroism of the Air Force men and the local villagers gets drowned in the overall hyper jingoism and focus on the stars, stale dialogues that have been said in many Indian “War Movies”, and the soldiers’ efforts become secondary to the stars and their antics! This is not about Vijay Karnik but about Ajay Devgun. And why not – after all if he is shelling out all the moolah for this nonsense, then why shouldn’t he get top billing.
Special effects. Hmm. We have a half-decent An12 and some Mi4s which were used during the 1971 war. The initial “air combat” scenes are hilarious as the MiG 21 pivots and do some weird things. The Pakistani Army attacks with modern T72 tanks in Bhuj.
It’s impossible to say anything positive about the movie. Movie? It’s a series of comic strip actions that strung together illogically, so much that when the movie ended, I sat up and screamed loudly
AATA MAAJHI SATAKLI !!!!
(Yes – this could be Singham 3 , 4 or 5 or whatever)
As always, with war movies its important to remember the below numbers on a scale of 0 to 5 :
- Real History – 2
- Equipment and Kit – 2
- Locations/ substitutes – 2
- Masala – 0
- Goofups – 0
- Role of women – 1
- Music – 1 (what music??)
Final rating – 1 .1 out of 5
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