Bhuj – The Pride of India tries hard with Devgn but it’s still at best a wannabe film on wartime patriotism
MyReview
Bhuj – The Pride of India
Ajay Devgn, Sanjay Dutt, Sonakshi Sinha and Sharad Kelkar
On Disney+Hotstar
Rated: 5/10
It’s the 75th year of Independence and exactly 50 years after India battled Pakistan over Bangladesh. So, movies like Bhuj The Pride of India on the 1971 war, especially if they are fictional despite being inspired by true events, are bound to be greeted with cynicism.
This cynicism to movies like Ajay Devgn’s Bhuj is borne out of the fact that India’s age 50 downwards population has no idea about the price that has been paid for freedom and the subsequent wars India and its soldiers have been paying over the seven and more decades.
Also, the only war that the world is right now engaged in fighting is against corona and no other patriotic flavour can move the movie buffs totally disoriented with the ferocity of a second wave just gone and a third wave coming in.
Hence, Bhuj – the Pride of India, a Devgn Pictures mount, despite being timed to the momentous occasion of Independence Day, will not capture too much of imagination. Call it jingoistic, call it over the top, call it whatever, but fact is that no amount of slogan-shouting can hide the chinks in its armour.
Add to that a big screen movie on the small screen and the goose for the expansive sets, bursting action and all the firepower gets stymied and you have an average effort a poor response.
Devgn is in his usual elements defusing bombs, biting down a Pakistani general on phone with “tera baap” talk and playing the hero of the war alongside Sanjay Dutt who is Pagi, a Kutchhi raw agent with a deep nose in Pakistan, all the way into the chief military officer’s bedroom! And just to make the obvious more clear in any jingoistic movie, his spy is a Muslim woman throwing expletives on Pakistan in general and its brand of Islam in particular.
The sets are made with enough meticulous scrutiny and the pace of action kept high and mighty. But, but but….. somehow, somewhere that oh so clear ring of artificiality, those false crescendos, those expected mid-climaxes and that vitriolic against Pakistan ruins the few moments there are in this big screen venture.
Also, the real meat of the movie, the women who repair the Bhuj airstrip overnight so that Indian soldiers can land and fight Pakistan which has destroyed all routes into Bhuj and is about to capture the strategic area, walk into the movie with all their colour and patriotic flavour too late into the film.
Till then we have to contend with the men and their muscle power. Sonalkshi Sinha is, of course, the leader of the women’s ring, singing dancing and of course building the airstrip like an engineer in a hall of fame! Yes, she does bring in the colour and the gaiety in the midst of an awful attack but again, that only builds up the artificiality from where Devgn-Dutt and the Sharad Kelkar trio never really let off.
Maybe, just maybe Bhuj… would have done well in multiplexes but I have my doubts. The audience has become dangerously discerning so it is all the more difficult for filmmakers to get away with loose dreams mounted on grand scale.
Yes, we still respect and honour our soldiers and our war heroes. But not any and everything in their name can truly light up the screen. Today, the market is content driven. No amount of glossing over that can win you tickets at the box office, be it on a small or a big screen.