‘Fighter’ and the epic mediocrity of Bollywood’s unfailingly crass projection of the Indian Air Force on-screen!
- Prashant Kavi (PK)
- Sep 19, 2024
- 7 min read
Updated: Nov 2, 2024
This turkey is totally brain-dead!
-Gordon Gekko, Wall Street (1987)
Having watched a string of movies in recent times, centered around the Indian Air Force, the movie ‘Fighter’ easily makes it to the top of the wall-of-shame!
The profound absurdity that permeates every frame of the movie makes you wonder, if this movie will ever find an audience willing to subject themselves to 3-hours of rank idiocy. But lo and behold, there seems to be enough demand for mediocrity too! For as I understand from publicly available information, the movie managed to score about 360 crores (about USD 43 million) at the Box Office and probably counting. For perspective, the unit cost of a Sukhoi SU30MKI fighter jet featured prominently in the movie, used to be about USD 42 million for a flyaway Russian import. Apparently, the top male lead of the movie, alone reportedly received about 80+ crores (or about USD 10 million) in compensation; which again to put things into perspective, compares with the gross annual salary of a flying branch Squadron Leader of the Indian Air Force (essayed by the lead star in the movie) of about 24L (under USD 30,000) with about 13-years of service.
The Director of the movie, during its pre-release marketing spree, took great pains to communicate that this wasn’t an ‘Indian Top Gun’. Fact is, it heavily borrows from the original and its degenerate sequel for the style template along with minor elements lifted here and there from the Bonds, the Bournes and the MI franchise types and juxtaposes it all against a beaten-to-death, rehashed, localized plot. The end result - a horrendous mess of loud lurid style and zero substance!
A warped creative concept to begin with, laced with mindless machismo (both in the air and on-ground), braindead logic, over-the-top jingoism, cheesy and pedestrian dialogues, mortifying humour, zero chemistry between the lead actors and aerial action sequences that besides defying all known laws of aerodynamics are also an inexcusable affront to airmanship! Even the much-touted CGI to create aerial flying/combat sequences in the movie are so over the top that they end up being desultory embellishments.
For a reported budget of about 250 Crores (about USD 30 million), this is a serious opportunity lost to present something creatively meaningful, that truly reflects the ethos and professionalism of one of the finest air forces of the world. And wishful thinking aside, let's get personal: this entire movie package, masquerading as a tribute, only ends up denigrating the uniformed men and women it espouses to honor and celebrate.
Top Gun (the original), when launched in 1986 reportedly did for US Naval recruiting what no amount of advertising campaigns or promotions ever could. But despite all the Indian Air Force support and technical guidance, including being granted access to facilities, top-of-the-line assets, equipment and personnel, the Filmmakers have spun a yarn so imbecile that the only talent, if at all, to gravitate towards potential recruitment would be the mediocre, best-of-what's-left type with only stars in their eyes. Even more bewildering are claims to have had, both former and serving Air Force personnel as 'technical consultants' on the project. Looking at the outcome, either they sleepwalked thru the whole project or were mere accoutrements, only brought in to provide some credibility when the end credits rolled.
But guess par-for-the-course from a Director, who’s only claim to fame has been bombastic, mindless, mass-entertainers, that seem to justify ludicrousness under the garb of ‘creative license, artistic freedom, dramatic liberties and such.
Alas, this has been a recurring theme for the Indian Air Force, from Bollywood!
Some other notable mentions on the wall of shame (in no particular order):
Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl (2020)
An overtly melodramatic mess, which in its portrayal of 'real-life' events gets severely castigated by the Indian Air Force itself, for 'showing the force and and its officers in poor light'.
Besides several contemporaries of the officer, around whose life and career this movie is based, have come out to forcefully debunk the main premise of the movie and claimed that the movie takes 'far too many creative liberties', in its portrayal of actual events.
The movie had nothing exciting to show with regards to the aerial action or the flying machines even as the core plot was swept away, seemingly in a rotor induced downwash!
Saving Grace: some intimate close-ups of the venerable Cheetah helicopter (the Indian license built version of the Aérospatiale SA 315B Lama).
BHUJ: The Pride of India (2021)
An unmitigated disaster, also 'inspired by true events', that took place during the India-Pakistan war of 1971 on an Indian Air Force airbase, on the western front. That the Director lost-the-plot on this one would be an understatement for it does nothing in its 113 minute duration other than worship its big Bollywood stars in every frame.
The blundering buffoonery is most evident in sequences of aerial skirmishes between the IAF MIG-21s and the PAF
F-86 Sabres. It appears that the producers of the movie ran out of budget in just paying for the big lineup of stars and resultantly skimped on the CGI content and special effects, making those aerial fights look like they were taken out of a Lego movie. First (F-86s) and second generation fighters (MIG-21s) are shown with digital information display screens and such, besides countless other absurdities!
Saving Grace: none except that the movie was capped in under two-hours unlike routine Bollywood fare at over 3-hours, that helped lessen the trauma somewhat!
TEJAS (2023)
This movie is the proverbial, high on josh and low on hosh venture, which loosely translated means, driven overwhelmingly and damagingly by passion and zeal at the cost of a reduced state of conscious cognitive control!
Designed to showcase India's first indigenous fighter, the Light Combat Aircraft, christened - Tejas (Eng. Radiance), the movie instead becomes convoluted in a plot so preposterous that midway the movie enters into a nose-dive from which it never recovers.
Loud and jingoistic most of the times and unrealistic, particularly in the aerial action sequences, at other times this movie only radiates incredulousness.
Saving Grace: Close ups of the Tejas Mk I, the Pilatus PC-7 Mk II and its simulator.
Operation Valentine (2024)
This one comes across as one of those South Indian cinema producer's valiant effort to launch a star son into Bollywood.
Unfortunately the movie doesn't even get airborne and last heard, neither had the star son's career.
Our hero is a veritable superhero and one-man-army as he juggles multiple tasks with aplomb, not limited to, single-handedly saving colleagues from the burning wreck of a crashed aircraft after shooing away everybody else, giving mission critical briefings that border on the hilarious, romancing the heroine who doesn't play hard-to-get either, driving fancy bikes and cars or taking showers and gloating over his chiseled body. Somewhere in all of this he also finds time to be an ace fighter pilot (officially designated as an elite test pilot).
And boy does he fly! This one features the formidable Mirage 2000 of the Indian Air Force and our swaggerful hero puts it through its paces in ways that even its manufacturer, Dassault Aviation, may not have known possible when they designed it!
Saving grace: This movie tries hard to outdo 'Fighter', in its on-screen inanities, which it superseded by just a couple of months for its launch; mercifully, it doesn't!
There have been some other Bollywood movies too, but have not featured the Indian Air Force as a central theme or are too inconsequential to even mention here. But regretfully, all have been formulaic with the same stylesheet that celebrates mediocrity with an utter lack of sensibility and dignity - creative license and dramatic liberties notwithstanding.
And then there was a gem!
Vijeta (1982)
Vijeta (Eng. Victorious) came out four years prior to Top Gun and was helmed by one of India's finest new-wave cinema Director & Cinematographer - Govind Nihalani.
Mostly described as a coming-of-age movie for its young protagonists journey, from a confused and angst ridden adolescent to becoming an officer and fighter pilot in the Indian Air Force. Yet the underlying theme remains that of, 'getting up every time to win even if life puts you down'.
A beautifully crafted tale that provides some excellent footage of the training and way-of-life of trainee cadets at the unique tri-services, National Defence Academy (Khadakvasla, Pune) and the Indian Air Force Academy (Dundigul, Hyderabad) thereafter. Shunning any jingoism, over-the-top patriotism, loud-mouth dialogues or saber rattling, as movies on such a subject are wont to; this movie faithfully captures the culture, the ethos and the professionalism besides truly projecting the esprit de corps of the Indian Air Force (and Armed Forces as a whole). Moreover, it does so with authenticity, great attention to detail and heartfelt simplicity.
Shot on a frugal budget for those times and minus any CGI or special effects, but with the full support of the Indian Air Force, the Director, an ace photographer himself, puts together some path breaking shots in Indian cinema, including aerial sequences, featuring predominantly the Mig-21 and HJT-16 Kiran (indigenously produced intermediate jet trainer of the Indian Air Force).
The plot (screenplay and dialogues written by two colossal stalwarts of Indian writing and visual arts, Dilip Chitre and Satyadev Dubey) feels very honest and uncomplicated; it lovingly brings out nuances of every setting in the movie with gentility and unhurried grace, besides providing great depth to every character, however fleeting their screen presence. This ensures that the movie emerges as a completely homogeneous package, amplified with some great background score that also features Hindustani classical vocal music.
Vijeta succeeds as a true ambassador for the Indian Air Force and the Armed Forces as a whole, because of the vision of its Director and the sensibility he brings; with conviction, a touching directness and lack of artifice. For instance, the movie does not shy away from showing its protagonists downed in aerial combat. But does so with dignity and without taking away any of the valor, those men-in-uniform represent (remember a certain Wg Cdr Abhinandan Varthaman?).
Four decades later Vijeta is still eminently watchable and how we wish, there were more Vijeta's to truly honor and celebrate our men and women of the Armed Forces besides providing the audience a somewhat unpretentious picture of our Armed Forces.
We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline.
-Col. Nathan Jessup, A Few Good Men (1992)
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