Thursday, October 3, 2019

WAR - Boys, Beaches and Bullets


If you’ve not watched Bang Bang or Baaghi – Don’t worry, after this one, you’re well caught up! This movie is a fabulous world tour, could be on Lonely Planet’s guide to beautiful coastlines and beaches in Europe and has two very good looking men waltz around it. At some point, it descends into an abject objectification of the two men, but heck we’ve survived debacles like Thugs of Hindostan – I’d rather watch Hrithik in Slo-mo for ten minutes, than Amitabh-Jack-Sparrow with a crow (Was it?) walk painfully at a tree for ten minutes.
The movie also reminds you of Matrix (what with all the superhuman bullet dodging), Mission Impossible (Yes, you can stand on an airplane while it flies apparently), Fast & the Furious (well, cars. Not like the franchise had too much meat after 3 sequels). But I think we’re very forgiving with some very bad scripts on say a Fast & Furious movie and we are okay to go watch it purely for the action, the boys and the cars. WAR I guess aims to do just that. Just that Vaani Kapoor doesn’t even classify as a gareebon ki Gal Gadot, but the rest of the pieces fall right in. 

So, please go watch this for the BOYS, BEACHES and BULLETS. Not for the script or for even 7th grade logic, or you’ll be giving it an F and asking to meet its parents. Here goes, my ten point review for WAR.

  1. I learnt something very valuable in this movie – Basically if you want to look like Katrina Kaif, please contact shady looking Indian accented best in the world plastic surgeon in Switzerland! Dipannita Sharma, why you be so under-valued always.
  2. Hrithik should have been on the ISRO Chandrayaan mission with his impeccable space grade coding skills! 
  3. Vaani Kapoor’s YRF three movie deal is hopefully over with WAR and this quota can stop hopefully. I kid you not, in one scene she wipes a tear which hasn’t even welled up in her eyes. Method actor level God, I say. And she promoted the movie for two months saying she was “waiting for the right role”, when in fact she has one song, six costumes and six minutes on screen! 😐 
  4. Work from home redefined – The lady (Also, subtle request to everyone in general to stop saying “female” to refer to a random lady – she’s a person, not a species) analyst on Hrithik’s team works from home during her wedding, hands over a drive on her wedding day IN HER Suhaag raat room and manages to change codes. God, I hope my boss doesn’t watch this. 
  5. If you play Limbo with Tiger Shroff, you’ll win – He cannot, I repeat cannot go UNDER a rope, even if it is chest high. He will jump over it. So you can schmooze underneath and voila, you win. Some stunts are taken too far for kicks – just ‘cause apun kar sakta hai, Bhidu. 
  6. A mother’s love transcends everything. The training camp is on top of a mountain, Hrithik arrives in a chopper but Ammi Jaan (played by Soni Razdaan, the newest and most popular face of Muslim mothers after Farida Jalal) saunters to the gate one day bringing dargah se duawein. *grab a tissue* moment. Gahh, maybe there was a cable car, you know nothin’ Jon Snow. 
  7. Yashraj and BMW have some secret pact of promoting that super bike – Dhoom may have done diddly squat for them, maybe WAR will be better. 
  8. I’ve heard of parents living abroad in not so high flying jobs to pay for children back home. But Naina’s story confounds me – She has a 3 year plan of dancing in different clubs in different countries (All expensive ones, by the way) and teaching Zumba to Caucasians (I’m told the G word is racist now) with Ainvayi Ainvayi Lut Gaya in the background. What visa is she on, even! Kaunsa Schenghen milta hai aisa! Where did she find these jobs? And how valuable is this profession? But also, please respect all professions – At one point, India’s future depends on Hrithik Roshan’s pimping skills. 
  9. When Hrithik gets off the chopper and has extremely light, very non-combat or military like clothing that’s flying about his way too chiseled body, Tiger Shroff looks at him like I look at my dessert arriving in a restaurant. These are Cupid goals, people. Find someone who looks at you like that, or train them by making them watch this!
  10. I can but I won’t “ruin” anything – The twist at the end of the movie is pretty super at the time it happens but afterward, it kinda takes you into Game of Thrones, Kyunki Saas bhi Kabhi Bahu thi category. Kinda. Well almost not (you don’t want to believe it does), but kinda.