"Jai Hind!"
Hello everyone!
I mean it, too.
Because while I might have tentatively dipped my toe into the waters of India-based movies initially, this one threw me right into the middle of the ocean and forced me to swim, sans life-jacket.
It was either that, or sink right to the bottom, so swimming it was!
Man, I loved it too. Tonight's choice is probably going to be one of my top spring movies to watch (I say spring, because that's when it was released on Netflix, despite the fact that it premiered back in January, so mid-winter). Very few will be able to top the sense of loyalty and love for your country mixed with just the right amount of absurd that seem to make up a lot of the Bollywood niche.
So without further ado, let's buckle our seatbelts - it's time to fly high in the sky with Fighter.
Fighter is basically India's answer to Top Gun, and the movie creators can say whatever they like, but it's true - although I'll say it's a sort of mash-up of Top Gun, Pearl Harbour, and the Fast and Furious franchise, so it's a sort of amalgamation of it all, with its own unique spin and twist on the story.
It's also VERY politically heavy; one can say India isn't afraid of putting Pakistan on the spot, despite tensions running high, and you can very well see it in this one.
It begins with Pakistani army leaders discussing this and that, and how they've called in a top operative into the occupied region of Kashmir; this dude is legitimately and completely unhinged, a devout follower of the Koran (supposedly), and he wants to make India bleed.
Meanwhile, the Indians are putting together an elite task force that will be able to respond at top speed and with the best of the best - including but not limited to Patty (Roshan) and Minni (Padukone), although Taj (Grover) deserves an honourable mention too, if only because he's such a lovable goof (cutie-pie, in Patty's own words).
Rocky (Kapoor), their CO, leads the training, and it immediately becomes obvious that tensions between him and Patty are HIGH. I mean, you could cut said tension with a knife and it wouldn't even have to be super sharp, either.
The reason for this becomes abundantly clear as the group socializes together after a botched training mission (which I could have called, because the fighter pilots have one job and one job only: protecting the choppers, but Patty peels off to chase after a bogey, so naturally he abandons the defense, and the rest, as they say, is history): two years ago, Patty had it all. A flourishing military career, and a fiancée, a helicopter pilot, when a rescue mission went sideways and a stray ground missile clipped her tail, causing her to crash and unfortunately pass away in the process.
Turns out, the fiancée was Rocky's sister, sooo ... ya know.
Anyway, the group continues to bond, and feelings start to develop between Patty and Minni, although Patty, at least, is reluctant to acknowledge them, but the happy-happy is interrupted by a bomb attack on a convoy of Indian soldiers (the same soldiers that our heroes meet on their flight to Jammu for some R&R). While he's attached to the top military leaders converging to discuss this, Patty produces a plan as to how India should retaliate:
they go in fast and hard and bomb the camp where terrorists train in Kashmir, which of course only makes the loco one angrier, and Taj nearly gets it when he's locked on by Pakistan's top pilot, call-signed Red Nose (not of the Rudolph variety, sadly).
Thankfully, Patty has nerves of steel and balls of iron, so he bluffs their way out of there, and everyone's out celebrating, Patty and Minni almost kiss, when they're forced to SCRAMBLE, SCRAMBLE, SCRAMBLE, as Pakistan launches a counter-attack.
Or, that's what it looks like.
What it turns into is complete disaster because they cut off radio communication, leaving Patty and Taj out to dry as they cross into Pakistani airspace, and Taj getting shot down, with Patty needing to return back to base unless he, too, wants to kiss dirt.
This results in an inquiry led by a really, really annoying Rocky, who's chomping at the bit to send Patty packing, which he effectively does: despite the fact nothing was actually Patty's fault and he's absolved of any crime, he's demoted and sent to the flying academy as an instructor, because, per Rocky's logic, they've lost too many pilots because of him, and he needs to separate him from the Air Dragons before any of them are next (saying, of course, that not one of them has any free will and can't make their own decisions).
Nobody argues that this is purely personal and Rocky's out there gunning for blood and has a vendetta against Patty, of course, because otherwise there'd be no drama and no movie, and at least we get to see Patty in action among the cadets, showcasing he can, if forced, actually be a pretty damn good instructor, cool as a cucumber under pressure, and able to answer just about any question asked (because he's probably done what they're asking, to begin with).
Then news breaks that Taj and his WSO are coming home, after lengthy talks along diplomatic channels, and Patty returns to bear witness to his friend's homecoming ... only it's not, not really.
Because remember the idiot loco terrorist? Yeah well, he decided he'll send the WSO home in a body bag, and didn't even return Taj, purely because he rage quit on the plan the diplomats cooked up.
Our heroes (and India) bury the WSO, and Patty reconnects with Taj's wife, who's been his friend longer than she's known Taj, but apparently even that wasn't enough not to blame him for what happened, although she at least trusts Patty enough to get her husband back home, if nothing else.
So Patty practically begs to be out there with his team, but Rocky categorically denies him; see, they got Taj's location from a double agent, only they don't know he's a double agent, so basically they're walking into a trap - supposedly. It turns out that the double agent's been double crossing the terrorists all the while, but making it look like he wasn't, so they're pretty well surprised when the Indians show up with the rescue cavalry to grab Taj.
Of course things then go sideways, and Minni can't do much with a wounded Taj on board her chopper when the second helicopter gets shot down, but by this point Patty's had enough and sits his ass into the cockpit of the second support plane, saying they can court-martial him if he gets back alive.
Rocky's the one who backs this play, surprisingly, saying that yes, he got the guy kicked off his team, but now he wants him back, for one undeniable reason: Patty's the best pilot they've got. Period.
With his CO as his WSO, Patty flies into action, rescues the other pilots up in the air, and then has the most dramatic delivery of the line about unbuckling your seatbelt as he and Rocky eject out of there and Red Nose has a head-on collision with the jet.
Patty then proceeds to hoof it over to where the terrorist has lost the plot, and the two engage in a final battle to the death, during which Patty wallops the other guy with an iron teakettle, a table, throws a door at him, and finally crashes an entire shack on top, not that anything slows this dude down. The only thing that eventually gets him is being seat-belted into his own car going straight into an explosion while Patty jumps free and hangs onto Minni's chopper for dear life.
Successful, the crew then returns to their home base, where Taj is reunited with his wife, and Rocky apologizes to Patty about, well, everything.
Then, cool as a cucumber, he tells Patty where to look for Minni, and our hero FINALLY moves his butt over so they can kiss.
The movie ends on a triumphant song, which is just as well since songs are woven in and out of it. It IS Bollywood, after all!
I will say though, that some feel very choppily inserted, put in only for the sake of being there rather than advancing the flow of the story - in fact, the one about Patty and Minni makes absolutely zero sense based on where it's placed, how it's shot, and what it shows in comparison to the movie, unless you then watch through to the end and the final song, which is a culmination/continuation of that first.
The rest are at times entertaining and other times fiercely patriotic, and they do evoke an interesting gamut of feelings.
Overall, Fighter is definitely not the most realistic of movies you'll ever watch, and unfortunately the chemistry between Hrithik and Deepila isn't the best out there, so it takes you a while to warm up to the idea of the two of them together (seriously, half the time I was wondering how he'll ever fall for her when she's so bloody annoying!), but it's vastly entertaining.
It's also rather provocative, politically speaking, but makes up for it in other ways, like Patty helping Minni and her parents reconcile.
For three hours, it's definitely worth the watch to see all the insanity Patty pulls in the air and gets away with, as well as the real camaraderie between the Air Dragons that's something else, and beautiful to witness. Absolutely recommend.
xx
*images and video not mine
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