Propaganda but well-made and entertaining to watch

Rating: 8/10 (1 December 2019)

I was surprised when I saw this flic appear in my local video rental shop. Whenever something rated as 18+ in Germany and I've never heard about it, the typical IMDb-rate is something around 5 and the topic is something about horror, heists. But for this movie it was a whopping 8.5! Only then I saw that it was a Bollywood production, but I thought I'd give it a try. Probably just a bunch of Indians voting it up for the dancing scenes, but maybe not. It being for adults only, the dancing might be a bit rough.
What I got was a full-blown action movie with heart and a seriousness one can feel right from the start. No dancing. Not to music, anyway. And a very professional production as well (AFAICT).
The movie does not have much to offer in terms of plot-twists or surprises. In fact, it walks through the whole story in a very straight fashion. Experienced movie watchers might be surprised about the lack of surprises, but I guess the main target audience is the allegedly "simple people" propaganda usually targets.
And propaganda this movie is, absolutely. Not one Indian citizen is shown who does anything morally questionable. The perfect soldier as protagonist, who also happens to be the perfect son, uncle, and brother. The perfect superiors who show a lot of compassion, the perfect prime minister who wisely listens to everybody before making a decision everybody can not only live with but even agree upon (after having seen that this is most wise). Even the "having to torture" scene (reluctantly executed and with a lot of shown remorse but also with a HUGE amount of determination because we all know that this was completely unavoidable) ends in a respectful talk with the victims after they have been made to see that they need to "do the right thing". Killing opponents, even in a most gruesome way, even after uselessly hurting them (cutting deep into the leg of a beaten antagonist) is clearly displayed as a positive action.
Also any display of the Pakistani is an endless line of clichÃ©s. Either they brag about how they deflowered a virgin, bully their subordinates or belch constantly. They also easily get fooled into being spied upon while the Indian spies never are in any real danger of being detected.
I'm not easily repelled by such simple stereotypes but I was a bit surprised on how much the film makers think their audience is willing to take.
Any real confrontation with the Kashmir conflict? Any display of two-sided aggression? Any dialectic at all, any relativism of the Indian position? Nothing. Alright. I got it. That's just not *this* movie.
But actually, for me that was not much of a problem. I noticed it and went on watching.
The movie also has a lot of peaceful scenes where the family life of the protagonist Major Vihaan Singh is shown, the Alzheimer's disease of his mother leads to some moderately suspenseful side-stories in the second quarter, and all of this is just a tiny bit slow, but it builds up very well on the mid-film climax when the terrorists attack the Uri camp and kill Singh's brother-in-law. The mourning scene was truly touching. Great child actress. -- And then a "war cry" is initiated by her, and answered by the lined-up soldiers. Urgs, a bit too much again. But okay.
It goes on. The retaliation for the terrorist attack is well-prepared, everything goes according to (the Indian) plan. The only slight counteraction the Pakistani try is (of course) in time found out by the Indian spies on the Pakistani side (who send their drugged and apparently drunk victim home by chauffeur to learn about the disaster of the Indian "surgical strike" retaliation only the next day at a hangover wake-up, which is shown as a comical post-credits-scene) and avoided swiftly by replacing the helicopter by a march. Does this delay spoil the whole concerted action of four helicopters attacking at the same time? Not in this movie.
In the end *all* targeted terrorist are killed (except for the one harmless boy among them who is bravely saved from being shot by the protagonist) and *not one* Indian soldier is killed. Despite being targeted with a minigun from a hovering hostile helicopter while running through open terrain. A befriended female pilot appears just in time and chases the bad guys away. (Han Solo: Â»You're all clear kid, let's blow this thing and go home!Â«) The movie ends with the victory cry still in the field right after the mission is accomplished. Everything is good. A bunch of bad guys killed. And in a silent aftermath we see how Singh's mother surprisingly recognizes her son once more, despite of her illness. Boy, this is all so good.
Writing it down makes it sound bad, boring and stupid. But despite of the clichÃ©-loaden and absolutely foreseeable plot, despite the absolutely single-sided view on an ongoing political conflict, the movie was very entertaining and kept me watching. I actually had to force me to pause it when the night got too late and was eager to continue watching the next day. Some movies just have the right pace, the proper dialogue and characters, good actors, and -- most of all -- the proper earnest and heart in approaching their subject.