After an innumerable number of lazy days and postponements, finally, I decided to write my first blog. What else can be the best start than writing a piece related to the Indian Armed Forces?
So, here it goes. (Opinion shared here is what I felt after watching the movie)
Firstly, I have never been to a under-water-war kind of movie and I knew absolutely nothing about submarines, their working etc. So, the trailer has got me excited to watch it as soon as it releases. The whole cast of the film is apt and had their fair share in the movie. Captain Rann Vijay Singh steals the show in the first half. His role is pretty much equal to the film lead’s in the first half. To be honest, Captain has inspired me to read George S Patton Jr.’s War As I Knew It with his dialogue – A soldier’s role is not to get killed by the enemy and get decorated with medals but to kill the enemy first. (not the exact dialogue). Then comes Rana, a tall handsome Lt. Commander who perfectly looks like one in real life too. I thought it always and had to say it now – “No matter what the role is, Rana perfectly fits into that”. Maybe he is the one stop destination for this kind of movies in the future. He perfectly takes over the charge in the second half and drives home flawlessly. Atul Kulkarni did his best in the middle of two stellar performances by Captain and the Lt. Commander. The other cast also did their best.
Somethings I noticed:
Even though the film comes with the warning – inspired by real life incidents and a little bit of fiction, after watching the film one can easily understand it is pretty good work of fiction. Probably, this kind of inspired by real life + a work of fiction films will never disappoint the Indian audience. We have seen Dangal which had a pretty good fictional ending and now this.
After watching the first half, it looks like it is really inspired from real life incidents but then comes the story. There is a scene which shows the Captain, Lt. Commander, and Atul Kulkarni share a drink inside the submarine which I think will never happen in Indian Navy. The submarine S21 hits a mine planted by Pakistan and sinks deep down to over 400M in the middle of Bay Of Bengal. The blast causes serious injuries to the crew and as well as to the submarine. But just in a short time, it comes to normal (engine doesn’t work) and uplifts itself to 350M. In the meantime, Lt. Commander gets constant info about the submarine, he learns that only 2 batteries are working and they will hold only for 2o mins. He also gets the info that the forward torpedos can’t be fired. Then comes the game of “Lift Manager” as the Ghazi submarine Captain says so. Indian submarine S21 survives 6 successful torpedos from the advanced PNS Ghazi which was imported from the US. After firing all the torpedos from the backside, Ghazi takes an 180 degree forward turn to fire a straight on the head to head against India’s S21. Our Lt. Commander goes into the forward vault which is already in the deep sea and fires the torpedo to end the film.And guess what, he survives. All the crew of S21 celebrates and directly uplifts to the surface of the sea forgetting that they have only 20 mins of battery and a not-working engine.
But hold on, these small things are common in any Indian film as we grew up and habituated to these. So, on the whole, the film is a good watch and it will keep you on the edge of the seats for the full 2 hours. The fact that we don’t know much about submarines makes it more Interesting. The hard work of the Naval officers in real life makes it Inspiring and feel proud of them.
Looks like, people are up to date with Supreme Court’s take on National Anthem in movie theaters. Not even one stood up when the National Anthem was being sung in the film. (Pretty Interesting).
Kudos to debutant young director Sankalp Reddy and especially to Rana Daggubati for taking this up. If it is not for him, this movie should have been a documentary. It was Rana’s presence that made Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions distribute this film and thereby making it bigger than what it was. 🙂
PS: I never revealed who won the war under the sea because we all knew who will win any such contest between India & Pakistan. 😛 😛
Sharath Chandra 