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Release
date:
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February 16, 2018
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Director:
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Neeraj Pandey
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Cast:
Language:
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Sidharth
Malhotra, Manoj Bajpayee, Rakul Preet Singh, Pooja Chopra, Kumud Mishra, Adil
Hussain, Naseeruddin Shah, Vikram Gokhale
Hindi
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There is a formula writer-director
Neeraj Pandey adopted in his 2015 hit Baby
that he carries forward into this one: show a bunch of smart-looking,
well-dressed people going somewhere, anywhere, at all times at a clipped pace,
keep the characters moving – literally, physically – throughout, use brisk
edits to cut back and forth between them, rope in an intense background score
to scale up the energy, and give them clever-sounding dialogues that hold out
the promise of something interesting to come at some point during the rest of
the film.
Aiyaary adds an uncommon title to the
mix along with Manoj Bajpayee, Sidharth Malhotra and the repeated use of
top-to-bottom tilt shots of cityscapes. The tweaks to the blueprint do not save
this film from its hollowness or air of déjà vu though. This is Baby Redux minus the chest-thumping
nationalism, still convinced that it is far cleverer and cooler than it
actually is.
“Vacuous” is a mild choice of
adjective for Pandey’s new film, the latest in a series of thrillers he has
churned out since the sleeper hit A
Wednesday! in 2008. Its troubling politics of anarchy notwithstanding, at
least A Wednesday! had a story and
meaning going for it. Baby had
Taapsee Pannu playing that rare female character given impressive stunt scenes
in a Hindi film. Aiyaary has nothing.
As with Baby, Aiyaary too
revolves around a covert ops team of the government of India, this one formed
within the Army. It is headed by a Colonel Abhay Singh, played by Bajpayee.
Malhotra is Major Jai Bakshi, an agent gone rogue. Their unit was formed with
government sanction, on the understanding that they would be disowned by the sarkar and the sena if they are ever found out.
No one discovers them, but Jai
decides to expose them to the media for reasons that are completely unclear
even after the end of the film.
(Spoiler
alert. Yawn.)
Jai claims he is blowing their
cover because during surveillance operations he realised that everyone is
corrupt – yes, his grand revelation is as non-specific as that. However, since
it is evident that he considers Colonel Abhay clean, there is no clarification
about why he rings the good man’s death knell too or why, at the last minute,
he chooses to issue repeated warnings to him to get out of there. Where is
“there”? Beats me.
Abhay’s undercover cell had the
government’s okay, but was put together by army chief General Pratap Malik with
funds that were not authorised on the record. So the chief (Vikram Gokhale) is
in trouble too, although it is never apparent why Jai decides to ruin him either
since he too seems to be a nice guy.
Oddly enough, Jai is working for
a corrupt arms lobbyist who was formerly with the army. Lt General Gurinder
Singh (Kumud Mishra) wants to punish Pratap Malik for objecting to the inflated
quotation offered by a group he represents in a defence deal. Why is sweet,
innocent, disillusioned Jai aiding bad, bad Gurinder in bringing the General
down? Again, beats me.
Jai’s ‘explanation’ for his
actions, when it does finally come, is so empty, so bereft of detail and logic,
that it feels like an act of betrayal on the part of Pandey the scriptwriter.
There is also an Adarsh scam-like reveal that is hyped up throughout the film
and then recounted in a silly, over-dramatised fashion in the climax.
Jai is in hiding and undercover
from the beginning of Aiyaary but all
that glib talk from him amounts to a lot of hoo-haa considering that he
epitomises stupidity in the way he allows a civilian to discover his true
identity by leaving his army I-card lying around in his absence. Besides, Abhay
manages to find him with just a click of his fingers, at which point our hero
and his girlfriend/accomplice react like hapless babies.
(Spoiler
alert ends. Yawn.)
Oh yes, before I forget, in the
picture is a girlfriend cum software specialist whose professional talents come
in handy for Jai’s hanky panky.
Her name is Sonia Gupta (Rakul
Preet Singh), and like Jai’s colleague, Captain Maya Semwal (Pooja Chopra), she
has little to do beyond be attractive and provide the director with an alibi in
case he is accused of excluding women from his all-male story.
Singh is just fresh from the
success of the Tamil film Theeran Adhigaaram Ondru in which she got to play a
cutesy female trifle in an otherwise gripping thriller about a no-nonsense male
cop. Here she gets to go a step further and give us proof of her character’s
hacking abilities by typing furiously on Jai’s laptop with her impeccably
manicured fingers.
Poor Chopra comes across as being capable of something more than just
standing around, but in Aiyaary, that is all she gets to do.
Meanwhile, Adil
Hussain, who was fabulous in last year’s fabulous Mukti Bhawan, is so unconvinced of his role as an arms dealer here,
that he seems to be suppressing his laughter while playing the part. I swear I
could sense a medley of giggles just below the surface in all his scenes.
Bajpayee somehow
pulls off the incredible feat of appearing earnest in an ocean of fluff. Malhotra
looks sincere and delicious from start to finish. His pretty face and sensitive
eyes are worth the price of a ticket in the worst of situations, but here we
get the bonus of his slim physique encased in battle fatigues. It is a sight
that, I assure you, is guaranteed to have any healthy, artistically inclined
human being go weak in the knees.
Barring the
low-priced extras the casting director settled for in Europe, as Bollywood
often does, money has obviously been spent on producing Aiyaary. Now if only time had been spent on thinking the script
through.
With his 2013 film Special 26, starring Akshay Kumar and
Bajpayee, Neeraj Pandey proved that he has what it takes to execute a solid
thriller. Aiyaary – which means shapeshifter, trickster, and more – is an example of what happens when a filmmaker,
like most of the industry he operates in, mentally differentiates between a
thinking, niche audience and a commercial audience (read: the masses), and
blatantly takes the latter for granted.
Aiyaary’s first hour is engaging because it gives us
reason to assume that great twists and turns will unfold at any moment. That
promise is unfulfilled in the remaining 100 minutes of the film. Pace and
bluster cannot compensate for lack of substance. This wannabe James Bond flick
is nothing but a blast of hot air.
Rating
(out of five stars): *
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CBFC Rating (India):
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UA
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Running time:
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160 minutes 10 seconds
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This review was also published on Firstpost:
Poster
courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/aiyaary/
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