Fighter (2024) – Stretcher

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Genre – War Movie

Language – Hindi

Time: 2 Hours, 45 minutes

Platform: Theatrical release

 

It’s impossible to keep a balanced perspective while watching an Indian Film with an Armed Forces background. Rare is the film that professionally shows the Armed Forces, as most films settle for “dialogue baazi” and “hero-giri“.

 

In this context, the 2020 film Gunjan Saxena comes to mind. For all the criticism of “nepo kids” and so on, the film DID show the Armed Forces in a reasonably professional manner – though Gunjan suffers the initial sexist attitudes.

 

I refer to the film because it has a truly rare quote and scene. In one scene, Gunjan (Jahnvi Kapoor) tells her father, Colonel Saxena (Pankaj Tripathi), “I don’t know whether I am patriotic enough. I just want to fly”. Her father replies, “You just do your job properly. PATRIOTISM WILL AUTOMATICALLY FOLLOW.”

 

As I had mentioned in the concluding chapter of my book Lights Camer War, on Indian War Films, I wish that every producer would stick this rule in their office while making a war film“. Most producers think that settling for explosions, visual effects, an improbable story, a good-looking lead cast, and jingoistic dialogue should suffice to bring in the paying public. Unfortunately, that doesn’t guarantee a good, let alone decent film.

 

Director Siddharth Anand explained why the film wasn’t doing well with an outrageously arrogant statement: “90% of people haven’t flown in a plane or been near airports, so it’s difficult for them to understand the film”. Naturally, the memes followed, “Pathan and Tiger were successes because 90% of Indians are R&AW agents”,… and so on. From this, one thing is clear: you can’t fool the audience, and it knows a good movie from bad to indifferent. Technical gloss alone can’t hide the truth that Fighter has a weak, even non-existent story, filled with stereotypes, wholesale copies of ideas and scenes from Top Gun.

 

So, let’s see if we can make some sense of the film.

 

A special quick-response air combat group is formed to counter any sudden moves by Pakistan or terrorist groups backed by them.  As expected, a suicide bomb attack happens on a CRPF convoy. The Indian Air Force(IAF) response is to destroy a terrorist training camp at Balakot inside Pakistan. “Patty” Pathania (Hritik Roshan) and his Senior are called to Air HQ where Patty proposes a plan to do a deep strike. This is carried out. The film could have ended here, and it would have been decent – except that the main terrorist, Azhar, promises hell on India. A series of air and land battles follow that would put any Call of Duty/ Battlefield game fan to shame.

 

Mission Impossible? Pah. The stunts here are so outrageous that even the MI series has to sit up and take note. We can already hear the counter – if Tom Cruise can use a mountain as a ski jump and land (DOWN) on a moving train, why can’t the equally hunky Hritik Roshan use a broken ladder as a ski jump and catch the waiting helicopter ABOVE him? Piloted by his flame Minni Rathore (Deepika Padukone)?

 

The arguments can go back and forth, but the matter is simple in the end. Despite the superb visual effects, this is simply a terrible movie. I take the liberty of returning to my book on Indian War Movies and the cliches mentioned therein. 

 

1. Cliché No.1 – those who don’t have any other job/ have been insulted/running away from some issue, only join the Armed Forces – dispensed with for the male characters, but the female character Minni fits the cliché to a certain extent. Her father wanted her married off. So, she joined the Air Force.
2. Cliche No. 3 – Love triangle. In this case, Rocky, the CO, blames Patty, the “fighter”, for the death of his helicopter pilot sister Enjay — a triangle of a different kind.
3. Cliché No.4 – Minority soldier dies/sacrifices himself – In this case, Basheer, the Muslim officer, is tortured and killed by the terrorist.
4. Cliché no.6 – Demonize the enemy – the opening scene is of the terrorist spouting all the usual nasty stuff against India. So, too, the Kashmiri fighters. The Pakistani Air Force officers also spout fiery lines while fighting the Indian pilots during air-to-air combat. (Not a single seeti or taali in the theatre). Combat is always a confusing affair with multiple talks and radio calls on the same channel, and here we have Patty and “Red Nose”, exchanging barbs and insults while they are going all over the sky.

 

From the first shot when “Patty” requests “an inverted run over the runaway” while his backseater “Unni” says it’s a bad idea, we can be sure that many scenes and ideas from both Top Gun movies will be copy-pasted. While Maverick does an unauthorized “inverted run” and is roundly chastised, Patty is given last-minute permission to do so with a suitable clashing guitar and rousing trumpets in the background. Similarly, Patty wants to “shoot down” Rocky during the exercise and thus leaves his ‘role” as top cover for the helicopters – exactly like Maverick leaving Iceman and going after Viper. The final result is a rebuke by his superior. The Pakistani F16s are painted green -Ridiculous. (All alright , they are not real F16s but CGI. Almost all Air Forces worldwide paint their combat aircraft in grey to merge with the sky). There are goofs too, as sometimes “Srinagar” is shown surrounded by green, almost tropical-style hills while at other times, it isn’t. Between the exercises, Patty and the gang party – just like Maverick and the team did. There are many more “filmi” things that are too long to be mentioned here.

 

So, is there anything positive? One has to dig deep on this one. Here goes:

 

1. Visual effects – the visual effects are stunning. A lot of money has gone into this. It stands up to the latest Top Gun maverick movie (which also had a wafer-thin stupid plot). Style matters more than content. The Sukhois popping flares again and again make for good visuals, though the missiles chasing them are radar-guided and not infra-red missiles against which the flares would have been effective.
2. Lead cast – Men will ogle Deepika Padukone, who plays a helicopter pilot, and women will ogle Hritik Roshan, who plays the Fighter of the title. So the rest of the cast comprises very “ordinary looking” folks. On a lighter note. Deepika shouts in the final climatic battle, “I am hit. I am hit”. For a moment, I thought she was saying, “I am hot. I am hot”. (Immediately after this scene, the chopper she flies is beautifully intact without any damage)
3. Air Force way of life – we get only a tiny glimpse of the scenes set in the IAF training academy at Hyderabad. We can see (real-life cadets?) undergoing strict training and wonder at their discipline and sense of duty.
4. Performances – Ashutosh Rana walks away with the plaudits in exactly two scenes. As Minni’s repentant father who has learned that a girl child is no less than a boy, his repentance – though ‘filmy’ – still holds the scene. All other characters are “stock” and “two-dimensional” cutouts.
5. Women pilots – this is probably one of the most significant positive points. It’s shown as a matter of fact, though here, women are piloting choppers, while in real life, they have already graduated to Mig 21 and Rafale. (Hey – it’s a film). The dialogue “an enemy bullet doesn’t differentiate between men and women” shows the inherent dangers of life in the Armed Forces. That a male character has to do a “bhaashan” and bring this to everyone’s notice is beside the point.

 

There is an overall sense of “why did I waste so much time and money for such nonsense”?

 

What stays with you after the film is over?

 

Nothing. Except for the Cobra manoeuvres by the Indian Sukhois, which they invariably use to escape trouble. It may look fabulous in peacetime air shows, but in wartime, it will present a big fat juicy target to the opponent who may or may not overshoot. Lastly, Patty uses his entire plane as a missile to kill the Pakistani Top Gun “Red Nose”, ejecting just in time before his Sukhoi crashes into the F16. Yes. That sticks to mind. It looks like the story department was smoking some really high-grade stuff.

 

Now you know why the director was so vocal about the audience not understanding the story.

 

The film should probably be retitled a stretcher as the plot is stretched until it loses meaning.

 

If you have nothing better to do or want to see some cutting-edge special effects, do try it. But watch with your eyes wide open. You may fall asleep and need that stretcher.

 

 

Real History/ Historical Background – 1 out of 5

Script – 0 out of 5

Story – 1 out of 5

Direction – 1 out of 5

Photography – 4 out of 5

Visual Effects – 4 out of 5

 

Total – 1.8 out of 5