Rating: C
Dir: Rohit Shetty
Star: Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, Jaaved Jaaferi, Jackie Shroff
This is part of another Bollywood franchise, not dissimilar to the YRF Spy Universe. It’s the fourth installment of the imaginatively-named “Cop Universe”, but distribution of the preceding entries seems spottier than for YRF. We opted to drop in for this one, due to the presence of Akshay Kumar, who has been our favourite Indian actor since Singh Is Kinng. He was in his mid-fifties when he made this, but still has some moves. Or, at least, his stunt double has. I didn’t feel like I was missing too much by not having seen the previous parts. Although there were some supporting characters who were clearly intended to be familiar to the audience. More on one of those later.
The basic plot sees terrorist Omar Hafeez (Shroff) plotting a series of attacks on Mumbai. This will use 600 kilos of powerful explosive, RDX, left behind in India after a campaign in 1993, and also members of a sleeper cell, installed in India around the same time. Out to stop him is DCP Veer Sooryavanshi (Kumar), chief of the anti-terrorism squad. He has a personal grudge too, because his parents were killed in the last incident. However, he’s having to deal with romantic strife, because his wife, Ria (Kaif, familiar from the Spy Universe), is seeking a separation, and is intending to move to Australia with their son. Might this be an excuse for a couple of musical numbers? I’ll never tell.
It is a good demonstration of the tonal inconsistencies of Bollywood. On the one hand, you have song and dance, outrageous stunts and broad comedy. On the other, stills and footage of genuine terrorist attacks, which killed hundreds of people. It’s all thoroughly pro-police, the movie literally being dedicated to them, and on multiple occasions, Sooryavanshi and his allies simply shoot enemies dead, rather than arrest them, in a way Dirty Harry might find a tad harsh. Yet it’s all so excessive, you can’t take it seriously. Witness the hero chasing a suspect on his motorbike, then reaching up to dangle from a helicopter, before flying out to sea where he simply reaches down to pluck the target off his jet-ski like a toy in a claw machine.
This is, however, restrained compared to ACP Sangram “Simmba” Bhalerao, one of those cameos mentioned, who takes Bollywood heroics to a glorious level almost beyond parody. While, again, dissonant to the plot about terrorists seeking to unleash bloody mayhem, I was amused, to the point I’m going to have seek out the Simmba movie. The rest though? Beyond the action, this is only sporadically interesting, with too much chat. And in a film running 145 minutes, too much of anything is a great deal indeed. The relationship stuff is similarly uninteresting. I will admit, Kaif does look nice, dancing in the rain, and I’m reminded of the famous line about Esther Williams: “Wet, she’s a star.” Similarly, with regard to the entertainment here, “Blowing things up, this is a movie.”