There are bullets in the guns, but no fire. There is artillery at the base, but no attack. You know what I mean. J P Dutta has a story to tell about our brave soldiers who were engaged in an intense war against the Chinese infiltration through the Sikkim border in '67, but he fails to execute it. The film begins well with the Indo-China '62 war but that's just that it has to keep you on your seat. 7 minutes later, in fact, when all the main characters are introduced, lactic acid starts generating in your body instead of adrenaline flowing in it. Is this the same filmmaker who made Ghulami, Border and even Refugee? There is a big Border hangover that stares glaringly at you right through the excruciating length of the film, but JP has clearly lost his touch. The biggest failure of the film is that the bromance between the jawans is devoid of conviction and depth. Anyway, the war begins. And?
Arjun Rampal is fine but can't do a Sunny Deol. Sonu Sood is sincere and okay, but fails to cry convincingly in the climax scene when he sees one of his main soldiers going down. Gurmeet Choudhary overacts. The girls, Esha Gupta and Sonal Chauhan, have nothing to do in the film- zilch is the word. Harshvardhan Rane, Siddhanth Kapoor and Luv Sinha have their moments, but few and far in between. As for Jackie Shroff, wonder why he did a 3-scene role with his opening scene not well-dubbed? Can't be any other reason but for old time's sake, right Jaggu Dada?
The less said about Anu Malik's music, the better. Can't forget Border's Ghar Kab Aaoge. And boy, give me that Suniel Shetty's suhaag raat, Aye Jaate Huye Lamhon number any day anytime. Anu Malik, what were you doing? Please, Border yaad nahin aayi kya. Aap hi ne toh itna josh dilaya tha humko aur rulaya bhi tha. Not that the background score of Sanjoy Chowdhury is any better. Surprisingly, Javed Akhtar's lyrics are not inspiring either.
Let us give this tacky representation of our soldiers' heroic deeds to ward off Chinese infiltration, which has more dust flying on the screen than emotions enveloping - a miss. I am going with ONE AND HALF, okay, TWO (an extra half for JP's honurable intention of putting forth China's fingering tactics with India in '67).
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