Rating : 3/5
Genre : Action/Thriller
Year : 2019
Running time : 2 hours 34 minutes
Director : Siddharth Anand
Cast : Hrithik Roshan, Tiger Shroff, Vaani Kapoor, Anupriya Goenka, Ashutosh Rana
Kid rating : PG-13
War, I thought, was over-hyped. And like any super-blockbuster YRF production, chockfull of big names, this had the potential to turn into a damp squib. Well, long story short – it didn’t. War is watchable.
Kabir (Roshan) is a secret agent. When he takes a new recruit Khalid (Shroff) under his wing, Khalid has to work very hard to prove himself. The mentor and mentee turn into close friends until Kabir goes rogue. Khalid must now hunt down his erstwhile teacher, a man he greatly admires and looks up to.
So, interesting premise and one which given the intelligence agency background allows both these fit, svelte men to strut their stuff. There are chases in interesting, exotic locations, and well-crafted fight scenes. Both Shroff and Roshan dance well, although Shroff seems like he’s doing a jazzercise routine when compared to the graceful Hrithik. There’s also the love angle, with the shapely Vaani Kapoor making a short appearance.
It’s one thing after another – the pace never lets up. But it being Bollywood, we have to weave in emotions and pathos, with some mother-son bonding, and some dialogue-baazi, all delivered with a straight face. Now, given the genre of the film, there is not much acting required. Hrithik can flex his acting chops when required but here he does’t need to do more than the minimum. There is no actor in Bollywood who can play a secret agent better than Hrithik, or look as good doing it :). Tiger cannot act (for proof, please see SOTY2), so he fits right in. Vaani is in the film briefly, but does alright. Ashutosh Rana is wasted terribly in a badly defined role.
War has no leading lady – just two leading men. The film is about Kabir and Khalid, and the villains such as they are pale into the background. Also short shrift for the women here, with Vaani barely in there to flash some leg, sing a song or two, and give us the maa-ki-mamta wala shit that Bollywood considers de rigueur.
War is a stylish spy thriller, and carries with it the sheen of money. Given the amount of money spent on exotic locales etc. the film is a bit clunky and lacking in finesse, but is till far more watchable than any of the Dhoom films. Understand though, that with all the spy thrillers/Mission Impossible type films that come in from Hollywood, it has gotten harder to produce fresh content for this genre, and it shows here. Even so, War does reasonably well, and is good paisa-vasool if you are going in for a stylish, masala entertainer.
