The film begins with a surgical strike being conducted by special force commandos led by Major Vihaan Shergill (Vicky Kaushal) against North-East insurgents hiding in Myanmar. Some days ago, they had carried out a dastardly attack on an Indian Army infantry convoy in Chandel district of Manipur. We learn that Vihaan wants to leave the army on compassionate grounds as his mother is suffering from an advanced stage of Alzheimer’s. He’s transferred instead as a pen pusher in Delhi so he can be with his mother. His brother-in-law Karan (Mohit Raina), a fellow major in the army gets killed when Pakistan based terrorists strike Uri. A devastated Vihaan asks permission to lead a counter-strike across the border. How he goes about it forms the crux of the film.
The story is high on emotional connect. You get to see the personal side of a professional soldier and can relate to the sacrifices he gets to make while serving his country. Thankfully, Vicky doesn’t have any romantic involvement either with Yami Gautam — who plays both a nurse and a spy, don’t ask why — or with Kirti Kulhari, who plays a grounded helicopter pilot. The josh of the soldiers is shown to be all time high as well.
The problem is with the screenplay. Instead of watching a patriotic film, you get the feeling you’re watching a revenge drama. Doing his duty should alone be the motivation for a group leader. Avenging his brother-in-law and best friend shouldn’t be the reason. Leaving that aside, there are technical glitches aplenty. The specially trained commandos make more noise travelling in the jungle than a pack of stampeding pachyderms. They wear night-vision goggles and yet stare directly at a light source, their rifles are without silencers, they don’t wear balaclavas…the list is endless. It’s more open war than a surgical strike. The action is akin to a first person shooter game. The ease with which Indian soldiers go on rampage, you feel they are playing PUBG instead of taking part in an operation inside hostile territory. There are even video game like sounds of shells being emptied out of guns. Everything is dumbed down for the audience. In the end, someone even says Hum jeet gaye, as if we didn’t see that happening on screen.
It’s Vicky Kaushal’s dedication that compels you to forget the mistakes and watch the film. Channeling his inner Martin Sheen, he method acts to glory amidst the madness and comes out triumphant from the heart of darkness. Take him away from the scheme of things and the film falls flat. He has once again shown that you can cast him in any sort of a role in any sort of a film and he’ll deliver his hundred per cent.
One can’t believe that the actual surgical strikes had such shoddy execution. Director Aditya Dhar should have watched films like Zero Dark Thirty or 7 Days In Entebbe to get a clear idea about how to make movies with surprise attack as the focus. The masses of course are unaware of the technicalities and he must be counting on the fact that ignorance is bliss. The patriotic fervour behind the project can’t be denied and better detailing definitely would have added another layer to the film.
