Cast: Hrithik Roshan, Deepika Padukone, Anil Kapoor, Karan Singh Grover, Akshay Oberoi, Sanjeeda Shaikh, Rishab Sawhney
Crew:
Cinematography by Satchith Paulose
Editing by Aarif Sheikh
Music by Vishal – Sheykar, Sanchit – Ankit
Written by Ramon Chibb, Hussain Dalal, Abbas Dalal, Siddharth Anand
Directed by Siddharth Anand
Produced by Siddharth Anand, Mamta Anand, Jyoti Deshpande, Ajit Andhare, Anku Pande, Ramon Chibb, Kevin Vaz
Fighter Movie Rating: 2.5/5
Hrithik Roshan has been one of the most popular stars of Indian Cinema but his movie script selection hasn’t been that great. He wants to give a mix of content driven and action films but there have been underwhelming films more often than not for him. Director Siddharth Anand has been able to give him a blockbuster like War, when he absolutely needed it. Now, the combination has come together once again for aviation thriller, Fighter. Let’s discuss about the film in detail.
Plot:
Shamsher “Patty” Pathania(Hrithik Roshan) is assigned to Rakesh “Rocky” Jaisingh(Anil Kapoor)’s Air Dragons team along with Sartaj “Taj” Gill(Karan Singh Grover), Basheer “Nash) Khan(Akshay Oberoi) and Minal “Minni” Rathore(Deepika Padukone). Both Patty and Minni are the stars of the group but Rocky despises Patty. He allows him to be part of the team, only and if only, he can be a team player. Minni gets attracted to loner attitude of Patty but he keeps pushing her away.
Meanwhile, Azhar(Rishab Sawhney), a militant, forces Pakistani army to act on his command, using his popularity among the high ranked officials and funds. He wants to destroy India and pulls off a Pulwama kind of attack of military. Indian Air Force plans Balakot attacks style surprise attack on terrorist hubs. In retaliation, Azhar uses Pakistan army to trap one of Air Dragons’ fighter jets. What happens next? Watch the movie to know more.
Analysis:
Top Gun film has blown minds of people around the world with aerial action stunts like never before and the characters from the film have been etched in the Cinematic history. Siddharth Anand is highly inspired from Top Gun and recent sequel, Top Gun Maverick. He tried to bring the Aviation action into his staple India vs Pakistan template action. War and Pathaan did not necessarily have Pakistani soldiers or army generals as major villains. And he tried to balance the hatred and love towards the nations and geo-political issues in a broader way than to the point. It almost seems like post Balkot attacks, he found his subject to make Top Gun style action movie, that he has been itching to make.
The characters, their struggles and few emotional notee are definitely taken from Top Gun. The refreshing addition is Minni character and the emotional quotient behind her does play out well. But Patty’s character seems to be designed in a particular way and then writer’s added some redeemable qualities to it. The arc that we need to associate with such a deep loner with big attitude needed even more in-depth handling. It just seems like Siddarth did not want to go beyond surface level in handling Patty and his emotional core. The director did get the team bonding and their activities right with great restraint. Still, Patty and Rocky bond needed much more exploration to really drive the movie in the climax with heavy punch.
Deepika Padukone gave a believable performance as an Air Force Pilot but looked one note in emotional scenes. Karan Singh Grover, Sanjeeda Shaikh, Ashay Oberoi did their best. Anil Kapoor drove the emotional scenes and his parts with great ease. Rishab Sawhney just did not have any impact due to his monotone character and portrayal. Hrithik Roshan had to convey everything through his eyes and he gave his best yet again. His dashing looks, conviction to portray a pilot, ability to emote anything without much Melodrama, made the movie watchable and enjoyable to an extent.
Background score and music could have been much better than just “Sujalam Suphalam”. Aviation stunt choreography and VFX are upto Hollywood standards. Had the writing been even better film could have been a memorable aviation action movie from Indian Cinema. For now, we have to be happy with this sincere attempt in creating jaw-dropping stunts while yearning for more character development in next attempts at this genre.
Positives:
Hrithik Roshan’s performance and screen presence
Team bonding scenes
Anil Kapoor’s performance
Minni and parents scene
Two aerial stunts
Negatives:
Monotonic Antagonist
Underwhelming writing
Repetitive BGM
Passable music
Jingoistic dialogues at unnecessary places
Too Generic Writing
Fighter Movie Bottom-line: Hits only near-by Target!
Sanjay Leela Bhansali now turns to Ranbir Kapoor and Alia pair!