An excessively simple movie turning into a film that’s too complicated can best describe Yodha. As the picture opens, we find Indian soldier Arun Katyal (Sidharth Malhotra) and his fellow soldiers on a covert mission near the Indo-Bangladesh border. In an armada of insurgents, their shaky Bangla tongue inside huts doing some conspiracy to cross over from one side to another through this porous border. Civilian lives are at stake here. The team is waiting for orders from “above,” as they keep watching every move made by the group (Spoiler: they aren’t gonna come). Guess what? (“Yodhas don’t know how to negotiate”). He takes a headshot before constructing a makeshift zipline which he uses to crash into the hut. Thereafter, he kills all terrorists in an action scene that is brilliantly visualized but poorly executed. Almost everything was used, punches knives guns assault rifles etcetera. Then the camera whirls around more than it wriggles while Malhotra snaps arms and plunges knives into his opponent’s legs.
Stuffing each scene with something so as to raise it has been the pattern in Yodha. Finally, Arun saves everyone by lighting a flare and Tiranga colors fly in the air. Nationalism or nothing.
Arun Katyal is one of such members of Yodha squad ‘with representation of Military, Air Force & Navy.’ His father Surender Katyal (Ronit Roy) created this squad which is very dear to him. In a sweet flashback Surender puts his son’s shoulder with uniform on as both gaze back at themselves in the mirror. It comes out that only Surender’s suitcase makes it home soon after however. Following this incident Arun makes up his mind counting himself Savleen’s mother.
However, things went sore fast enough within no time span for Arun. Having failed to rescue the country’s ‘top nuclear scientist’, the Yodha group is now disbanded. Arun was embarrassed for defying orders and he is a traitor too. Priyamvada (Raashii Khanna), on her part, works with the government and has also issued him divorce papers. Numerous things happen within the first half of the film too quickly. Some scenes merely act as fillers. There is no time for anything to settle down here, it feels like hastening somewhere impatiently. It is not that all cards are played out yet It is not that it says, put up with some clichés, or wait till you get served better.
Jump in time without clear indication, ‘Few years later’ and we have Arun with beard, wearing black shades and smoking a cigarette while gazing at the plane through the window glass. Will he hijack a plane to take revenge from this wrong bureaucratic system on him and his team? It’s from here that the film becomes really nail biting. A tainted soldier is claiming that the flight is going to be hijacked; should we believe him? Is he a rogue? A big man with no hair gets killed but he isn’t actually the hijacker. On the plane, there is an over-smart teenager, a loud-mouthed uncle and an unknowing airhostess (Disha Patani), so which one will it be?
I did like some ideas Yodha brought up during discussions. It combines elements of mystery with hijack-thriller and re-ignites the movie for sometime. Some action sequences, such as fighting inside an airplane spinning and nosediving or inside the cargo unit of the flight with reducing temperatures were novel sometimes. But this doesn’t last long until gravity pulls it back into formulaic thriller land. Somethings do not quite sum up.
It has twists and turns like Abbas Mustan potboilers. Does it have bomb on board? Is it carrying a bomb? Was Indian PM targeted? Or was Pakistani PM targeted? Or were my brain cells targeted? Yodha does not know when its ‘gotcha’ moments begin getting more convoluted than they need to be. Yet, even before you can replay everything in your head again let alone let it settle down and make sense of everything, then flare is gone again. Look! Tricolour!
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