Review for BHUJ: THE PRIDE OF INDIA.
•Language: HINDI.
•Duration: 01 Hour 53 Minutes.
•Genre: PERIOD WAR DRAMA.
•STEARMING ON HOTSTAR+DISNEY
• REVIEW BY ARUNJYOTHI.R.VALIYAVEETIL.
•POSITIVES:
1: STORY
2: PERFORMANCE OF ACTORS.
3: CINEMATOGRAPHY.
4: EDITING.
•NEGATIVES:
1: AVERAGE DIRECTION.
2: POOR SCREENPLAY.
3: WEAK DIALOGUES.
4: POOR VFX.
5: LACK OF GOOD BACKGROUND SCORE.
6: UNWANTED SONGS.
7: LENGTHY DURATION AND LAGGING.
8: OVERDRAMATIC AND CLICHES.
•ONE WORD: Giving the viewers a battle to skip, a pathetic war movie.
•STORY IDEA:
The story starts during the 1971 Indo-Pak war, IAF airstrip at Bhuj was attacked by the Pakistan Air Force leading to several killings and disasters. Vijay Karnik (Ajay Devgn) is charged as the commanding officer so substantially with the help of 300 women he and his mates reconstruct the runway of the airbase within a single night. This mode of act proved the love and devotion of the citizen for the country and also lead to winning the war. The movie ends with the Indian army successfully defeating the Pakistan army.
•DETAIL REVIEW:
The movie is directed by Abhishek Dudhaiya who also wrote the written works. Along with him Raman Kumar, Ritesh Shah, and Pooja Bhavoria join in the writing also the additional dialogues are written by Manoj Muntashir. The movie is produced by Bhushan Kumar, Ginny Khanuja, Krishan Kumar, Kumar Mangat Pathak, Bunny Sanghavi, Vajir Singh, and Abhishek Dudhaiya. The film comes under the production companies of T-Series, Ajay Devgn FFilms, and Select Media Holdings LLP. The cinematography is by Aseem Bajaj and the editing is by Dharmendra Sharma. The movie is currently streaming through Disney+ Hotstar VIP.
To make a war movie is a difficult task and if it's a periodical one it's more difficult therefore overcoming the challenges and bringing out a promising periodical war movie can be done only by good makers. So Bhuj: The Pride of India is a lesson for those who are aiming to make a war film, this film proves and gives a moral on how a war film should not be made. The entire film was a complete mess with poor direction, weak writing, and bad visual effects. Even though the film is only having a length of 01 Hour and 53 minutes the viewers won't engage within the film, also the movie was dragging very much and was testing my patience to skip forward. The movie is very much rich with the routine formula that we can found in spy and war films and also many unrealistic scenes were filled to get bored. The makes of this film are the ones who had spoiled a great story and this movie as a tribute to the real-life incidents had turned out to be disastrous.
More than positive factors negative things are served by this messy film. The direction of Abhishek Dudhaiya who had previously directed and produced many Indian Serials had done a great job to make this movie absurd and meaningless. His atrocious direction was killing a potential plot from the very beginning and the final result is just absurd. The ideas and thoughts he gave for the movie haven't worked out as per his plans and it's evident by the way of his execution. Many imperfections and mistakes were overflowing, the style of his direction was seeing like a big-budget drama on stage. The overdramatic stuff he had brought on his making was turning out into cliches. From the beginning, the film turned out to be confusing, the introduction battle was shown out very miserably without a proper sinking and connection to the incident also the shoddy VFX was killing the visual experience. The beginning was also having too many incidents with subplots so the connecting factors to the actual plot were directed inadequately leaving many confusions and one can't feel or realize what is currently happening.
The writing of characters was very bad, none of the characters was having the right depth, most of them doesn't create an influence so that while watching I was not getting any connection with the characters, with their life and with their aims. The character of Sonakshi Sinha was crucial but the way the writer had written it was complicated, the particular character was having many important roles to create an impact as a women village leader but all her dialogues, looks, and attitudes were organized tediously which sadly failed to create a punch. Her introductory scene of killing a leopard using a knife with bare hands even by holding a crying child was rubbish and senseless to watch. Next to the role of Pranitha Subhash, the wife character of Ajay Devgn, still wondering for what purpose the writer had made this character. Not even a single dialogue was given to her, she was only having the space to have a nasty dance with Ajay Devgn and also to show some desperate and happy looks. Next, the character of Sanjay Dutt, who works for the RAW, comes suddenly and goes suddenly, no proper detailing was given for the character. In the climax, he is surrounded by hundreds of Pakistani army officers and he easily kills all of them with an axe, he doesn't get any hurt or wounds, finishes everyone with his tough looks. The regular formula of boosting the stardom of Sanjay Dutt was successfully shown by the director. Another cliche is before the battle the lead actors passing the brave dialogues for themselves and aiming to cheer others was funny to watch. Next is actor Ammy Virk's plane get hit and crashing on the sea and he rises up without any injuries and acting as nothing had happened was amateurishly written. Also, the next day he walks alone without anyone's help and is found to be at the airbase to catch a Pakistani spy was shown pathetically. Finally, the character of Ajay Devgn, even though a film is bad he carries his responsibilities perfectly to make the movie watchable but sadly his screen presence had also not helped the movie from sinking. His presence was not having any sort of depth, the impact to create to wow moment was missing, his cliche dialogue was disastrous. There is a scene in the climax where a plane without having front tires targeting to land safely by carrying it on the back of the truck where Ajay Devgn is driving is having a dialogue before the beginning in which he says “A Maratha only knows two things: to kill or be killed”, was shocked to see this funny cliche and overdramatic dialogues. Also, the routine pattern of over boosting the bravery of main actors was compressed unwantedly.
The screenplay suffers from many complications, as mentioned earlier the written characterization for the actors had failed miserably. Next is the portrayal of emotions especially patriotism, the character of Nora Fatehi is a great example. Pakistani soldiers killing her brother by finding out that he is a spy and eventually she turning into a soldier to seek vengeance for her brother and also to serve the county was unfavorable for the moving pace. Just like we saw in Razi of Alia Bhatt, here Nora is also living as a wife of a Pakistani soldier. Like the real and usual pattern, soon her husband finding out that she is a spy and she kills him to survive and finally caught up by the army is repeated in this film also. Before she dies the words she used to denote her love towards the county show another extreme overdramatic side of patriotism. The dialogues were extremely mismatching to set the scenes, the cliche dialogues and overdramatic words were annoying to hear. Also, the placement of dialogue was not perfect, to boost the stardom of the main actor's unnecessary dialogues were added. I am sure that the writers haven't done proper research on the real incident because realism was missing all over. The incidents of the India-Pakistan war of 1971 is having the occurrence of many events and it contains man interesting twist and turns is something that can excite anyone but here due to the lack of research the makers with the less knowledge have dumped every intriguing side of the real incident.
• TECHNICAL SIDE:
The cinematography by Aseem Bajaj was great but most of the frames and shots were spoiled by the horrifying visual effects. The lengthy single-shot showcasing the battlefield and war was shown adequately but again the work of VFX made it look dull. The lighting techniques were something need to be mention, the arrangements were impressive. The editing of Dharmendra Sharma was pretty good without mismatches and the grading and coloring he used to set the night shots were brilliant. The action sequences and the choreographed style don't impress much but ok. The background score was totally disappointing without giving any right sort of impact. For the war scenes, the final result of building a moment was not setback by the unstable background score. For also the heroic scene the lack of punch was felt due to the lack of a good background score. The song ‘Hunjugam’ sung by Jubin Nautiyal and composed by Gourov Dasgupta was normal with the familiar tune. In between some songs were added which I felt unwanted because the scenarios were not right for adding the song.
•CONCLUSION:
So overall to conclude Bhuj: The Pride Of India had given me a disappointing experience in all manner. The story of the film was having every potential component for a periodical war drama but everything was aggressively destroyed by the worst direction and poor writing. The blame lies on the court of the director and writers also the unsatisfying VFX had killed the viewing experience. Therefore to conclude, I won't recommend this horrible film to anyone, just for a time pass or to know about the 1971 Indo- Pakistan War you can watch this but still approach with fewer expectations.
•OVERALL: DISASTER
•RATING: 1.5/5
