My First Bollywood Review

Despite a brief appreciation for Aishwarya Rai around the mid-2000’s, I was never into Bollywood movies, dismissing them as little more than vacuous and disposable fluff filled with cheesy song-and-dance numbers (in an unfamiliar language) not worth much attention.  So imagine my surprise when, on a whim, I went to see ‘War,’ a Hindi-language spy-versus-spy actioner in the mold of James Bond/Mission Impossible/Jason Bourne (it pays homage to them) that set a new box office record for the biggest Bollywood opening ever, in India that is.  I was bored, so sue me.

 

Starring Bollywood veteran Hrithik Roshan and rising newcomer Tiger Shroff (both of whom I never heard of, big surprise), ‘War’ tells the story of a decorated veteran RAW (acronym for Research and Analysis Wing, India’s CIA) operative (Roshan) who went rogue for undisclosed reasons, and his former protégé who adored him (Shroff) tasked to stop him, by deadly force if necessary.  Not exactly anything we haven’t seen before, but ‘War’ has enough twists and turns to keep the audience guessing throughout its 155-minute running time, which somehow didn’t seem overlong because the film more than holds is own compared to Hollywood blockbusters and is packed with so much set-piece action sequences that we easily lose track of the time.

 

Even for a jaded spy movie junkie like me , ‘War’ is different and makes for a fresh movie-watching experience.  Of course, there are the requisite cheesy song-and-dance numbers (it wouldn’t be a Bollywood movie if it didn’t, after all), but they’re strangely entertaining and, dare I say, even fun.  Besides, watching Roshan and Shroff gleefully strut their stuff effortlessly in well-choreographed dance routines that would do even boy bands like Backstreet Boys and N’ Sync proud goes fully hand-in-hand with the harmless dose of wholesome homoerotism between the two male leads.  See?  Even Forbes resident movie critic Scott Mendelson agrees: Read It Here 

Grade: A-