In Hindi cinema, foreshadowing has somehow become a go-to formula for a war film. In 120 Bahadur, the latest in Bollywood’s canon of real-to-reel combat cinema, the signs are all there very early on — a promise to return made to a beloved, a son imagining the happy times he will get to spend with his parents again, a father writing a letter to his young son from a zone of strife, with special emphasis on words like ‘saahas’ (courage) and ‘balidaan’ (sacrifice). When our leading man — Farhan Akhtar’s braveheart Shaitan Singh Bhati — is asked to cut short his leave and called back to duty ahead of the festive season, he tells his wife: “Agle saal Diwali aise manayenge ki iss saal ki kasar poori ho jaaye”. It is such a predictable route to take that one knows he will never make it back.
You may argue that 120 Bahadur is, after all, based on real life and we all know how it will end. But couldn’t the storytelling, even while working within this format and framework, be a little more inventive? Setting up the inner world of a soldier and driving home repeatedly that family < country for every braveheart, may be a tried-and-tested formula to milk the viewer’s emotion and empathy and aid him in investing in the lives of the brave men at the centre, but Bollywood now needs to figure out a less-mothballed technique for its storytelling in this genre.
The problem in 120 Bahadur — directed by Razneesh ‘Razy’ Ghai and produced by Akhtar’s Excel Entertainment — is that despite the almost entire first hour being dedicated to setting up the backstories of the soldiers (120 in all, as the title suggests, most of them hailing from the Ahir tribe), there is little that tugs at the heartstrings — despite the effective performances from its rag-tag team of actors — when they put themselves in the line of fire.
To give credit where it is due, the nugget of history that the film focuses on is worth telling the world. Bhati, the commander of the Charlie Company of the 13 Kumaon Regiment during the Indo-China aggression of 1962, was posthumously awarded the Param Vir Chakra, India’s highest military decoration for valour, after he and his men went down fighting a much larger Chinese army in the Battle of Rezang La. It is an act of exemplary bravery and selfless sacrifice that needed a much better film.
Team 120 Bahadur, in fact, didn’t have to look far. Two decades ago, Akhtar — in his sophomore outing as director — gave us Lakshya, an overlong but goosebump-inducing film about a young man’s coming-of-age story even as he fearlessly and purposefully defended his country’s borders. A film that continues to make it to best-in-the-genre lists, Lakshya still evokes emotions — even on a repeat watch — that 120 Bahadur can’t even come close to.
The action, though visceral, is repetitive and loses its heartrending quality after a point, but Japanese-born French cinematographer Tetsuo Nagata conjures evocative visuals, which turn out to easily be the best bit of 120 Bahadur.
The below-par performances, however, don’t work. Farhan Akhtar is committed in body and body language, but is too urbane to play a part like this. He dives in with dedication, but that is not enough. Raashii Khanna as Shaitan’s wife has precious little to do, with Ajinkya Deo and Eijaz Khan, playing Shaitan’s army bosses, being strictly okay. Among the Sandese aate hain-coded regiment, Vivan Bhatena is the sole known face, while Ankit Siwach, playing soldier Ramlal, looks like Vicky Kaushal who didn’t get the “josh” memo. There is also a Chinese commander who can give Kim Jong Un massive competition in the grumpiness department.
In the end, 120 Bahadur is a case of what could have been. Instead, the number of times it allows the words “Saale Chini” to slip into the screenplay makes you feel it would have fared better as a diabetes prevention advert.
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