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This Fighter review will be full of spoilers. Avoid reading if you haven’t watched it yet. Dekh lo fir padhna. Aur jo dekh chuke hain, aao ek sortie karke ate hain.
Hrithik
What an actor man, what an actor. Ek toh ye given hai ki we all love him. Bas screen pe aajata hai hume accha lagne lagta hai. He lead the film on his shoulders with grace. Two of my most favourite scenes were –
One where he is talking to Minni’s father and mother at the airport. Not much is happening in the scene, they did not rely on any emotional bgm or cinematic shots or loud dialogues. Yes, there were close ups of the father and mother but it was Hrithik, who’s delivery was so good that the whole scene was elevated. The writing and editing was perfect. Great scene.
Another was his scene with Sanchi at Bash’s funeral. Really felt it.
I was skeptical about the IOP scene but it was nice. Main bhi Bollywood fan hu bachpan se, thoda drama and dialoguebaazi chalta hai. Credit goes to Hrithik, he sold it well.
That “please” part was a nice touch. Dinner scene with everyone and Deepika teasing Patty, calling him Shammi was really cute.
Deepika
To be honest, wanted more of her. Her chemistry with Hrithik was great. But most of the time it was just her chasing after Patty like they do it in south movies, where the girl is leaving no chance to line maro on our hero, while he does not care. Jo tha, bura nahi tha, but thoda aur chahiye tha. Liked all her on one one scenes with Hrithik. Somebody said, they should be cast together in another movie and I completely agree.
My most favourite scene of hers has to be the one with her parents. Good actors make the scene much more than just dialogues on paper and here, all three on them were excellent.
Other Cast
Anil Kapoor, he is simply Jhakaas! He nails every role he does. He is a senior, experienced and fabulous actor, and we can feel that every time he is on screen, no matter which film it is.
Akshay Oberoi as Bash was nice, they showed some mature and hearty relation with Patty. He is a good actor, have seen him in so many webseries. He hould have had a bigger role.
Karan Singh Grover was the fun friend of the group, always trying to crack a joke and make you smile. He also left us wanting for more.
Sanjeeda Shaikh as Sanchi also did her part very well. That one emotional scene with Patty was so impactful.
All the actors shown as Pakistani characters, whether from the army, the pilots or the ATC were not up to the mark at all.
Villain
Rishabh Sawhney as Azhar Akhtar was wasted. He is very stylish. His voice is also good. But the lines given to him fell flat. A few of them worked, but most were just cliched Pakistani antagonist dialogues. His red eye, long hair look was great. In one fight scene with Hrithik, when its a pov shot from low angle and he is landing punches after punches, with all the bruise and red eye, I felt he looked like a Terminator. Writing failed him. He could have been a villain worth remembering.
Aerial Action and Vfx
These were maybe the best parts of the film. Definitely slow motions were not needed. These are high speed sequences and slow motions have no role to play here. Felt cliched and childish. Especially where they seem to make eye contact. The tension between the Pilot and WSO, the pilot and control room back at the base, completing the mission, dropping the payload, not crossing the LOC, ambush, crash, everything was very smooth. The editing in such scenes play an important role in building the tension and they handled it very well.
Vfx was excellent. I watched the film in IMAX 3D. It did not feel like a 3D rendered model was placed in the sky canvas, which makes it look fake. Like it was the case in Tejas, or like it generally happens in many poorly executed vfx shots. I’m happy that if we are able to achieve this, it means Indian vfx industry is on the right track. We just need directors who decide not to compromise on the quality.
Direction
Siddharth Anand is a good director. He knows how to present action scenes and he knows how to make his characters look stylish. Be it Bang Bang, War, Fighter, or the rom-coms he directed before that. Style is always on point. The emotional angles of the characters work. The friendships, the loss, family, those were the scenes that made us connect with the characters. Yet, the overall direction was far from perfect, which we will discuss in the next section.
Writing
Same old India-Pakistan enmity is something we are tired of. Okay, we get that there has been no movie on the Pulwama attack or the Balakot airstrike, but over the years we have had tens of movies and series around similar topics. We have to realise that people also watch a lot of series in between these films and hence a fresh story needs to be told, otherwise our interest goes down.
Chalo maan liya ki bana bhi rahe ho, acche se toh banao. We had a villain jisse na darr lagta hai, (like Tiger Zinda Hai’s Abu Usman), na maza ata hai dekhne mein (like Pathaan’s Jim), na threat feel hota hai story par (like in War, Ilyasi/Khalid). Basically a very thanda villain. All Pakistani characters are like jokers. And just one pilot ‘Red Nose’, with soorma in his eyes who uses ‘Janab’ a lot. Common yar, we deserve better.
Ek sardar bas comic relief ke liye hai, ek hi female officer hai that too is involved in rescue operations, not a fighter pilot. Azhar’s confrontation with Bash and Tej was so bad. Bashir’s death too was very stretched, kitni bar ye sab dekha hua hai na. The emotion was right, the scenes had impact for sure, but kya itna sab dikhana zaruri tha? Aisa nahi lagta hum repeat mode pe chale gaye hain?
The deaths of Red Nose and Azhar Akhtar were ridiculous. Hum desi log hain, ye Bollywood hai, hum cinematic liberty dete hain, but kitna? The writing and presentation because of these few things felt all over the place. Na puri patriotic film thi, like Lakshya or Uri, na puri stylish action film thi like Bang Bang, na puri tarah se masala film thi like Main Hoon Na. All these films held one main theme and played around with deshbhakti. Fighter felt like it wanted to touch everything.
Dialogues
Dialogues in Fighter were a hit and miss. The Pakistani characters’ dialogues, much of Azhar Akhtar (except a few) and all the forced deshbhakti and terrorist dialogues did not land well. Most of the jokes were nice, they were centred around the characters and their relationships.
Music
Ek hi theme hai jo sabse zyada kaam karti hain and bilkul starting se pasand aa rahi hai. The Fighter theme. Not a big fan of Heer Aasmani, but it was well placed. Sher Khul Gaye abruptly ata hai as a celebration song. Very well choreographed though. Ishq Jaisa Kuch aya nahi and sahi bhi tha. Story wise kahi placement lagi bhi nahi uski. Ek aur song tha jo CBFC ne hatwa diya end se. Theek lagi baat jis tone pe film end ki thi waha zabardasti ek romantic gaana ghusane ka matlab nahi tha. Hope they release it now. Leaks aye hain from international releases.
Top Gun Comparison
Nothing to compare. Same concept hai toh parallels honge. Har love story, love triangle, horror, superhero film mein similarities hoti hain. There were a few overlaps too, such as Maverick and Patty were both the best but cocky. But the background story was very different and we should understand that.
Patty pulls a Maverick
Okay, you can say this was straight out of Maverick but I have no complaints. Patty being demoted to a flying instructor and the pilot who is not authorised to fly, gets into the plane without permission. But unlike Tom Cruise, Patty asks for permission before taking off and Anil Kapoor joins him. I was smiling, thoda toh chalta hai. Haina?
How could it have been better?
Instead of the whole based on real events of India Pakistan, we could have gone for something completely fictional. A technology that could be disastrous for world harmony, like a program that can erase all documents of a person shown in the Dark Knight Rises, God’s Eye shown in Fast & Furious or the kinds shown in Die Hard 4 or MI7. They could have explored the assassination of foreign delegates on Indian soil that could lead to a potential world war 3. Now the threat level is higher.
We needed a strong villain. And apne hero ka, jo air force pilot hai, uska hand to hand combat rakhna zaruri nahi tha. The stakes could have been raised higher like the did in Top Gun Maverick. Hell, we could have done even better.
Needed a bit more focus on how the Air Force operates. More intro into the working of the planes, how the G force acts on the pilot in different situations, comparison of MIG, Tejas, Sukhoi and Dassault Rafale. Which is better in what condition, which is faster, which is better in dogfights, which can carry more missiles. Many think the audience is not smart enough and I hate that. For exmaple, Ajay Devgn changed the title from Mayday to Runway34 because they felt that it was too technical for the audience to understand. Audience smart hai sir, aap level badhao hum catch up kar lenge.
Now that we are going full fiction, they could have shown that India is secretly developing a very highly advanced fighter jet that surpasses every other in the world, like the one Tom Cruise was flying in the beginning of Top Gun Maverick.
Desh ka emotion and all that iss tarah bhi aa sakta tha. I understand there would have been a lot of research on Air Force, Aircrafts, technicalities of vfx. Writing is a script is difficult, but aisa kuch zarur dikhana tha jo pehle nahi dekha. We need to level up.
Verdict
Fighter is a very good film that deserves a theatrical watch. With all it’s drawbacks, it is still very entertaining and holds your interest from start to end. A nice example of ‘bad trailer good film’. Some characters and parts are so good what you wish to see them more, maybe in a sequel. So my recommendation is that you should watch it in theatre, ghar pe utna maza nahi ayega. And jo bhi meri complaints hain, wo bas isliye hain because I want our films to be better.
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The slow motion shots were unnecessary and it made the film feel cliche like any other slow motion shots in Indian movies, the final action scene was far from reality and it was too over the top, also with too many cuts.
Slow motion were a major drawback for I don’t like slow Mo’s and also slow motions are so cliche like any other Indian movies plus the climax fight scene was just too over the top and far away from reality, which was also bad with too many cuts .