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Release
date:
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November 29, 2019
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Director:
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Aditya
Datt
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Cast:
Language:
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Vidyut Jammwal, Adah Sharma, Gulshan Devaiah, Angira Dhar,
Rajesh Tailang
Hindi
|
A
study of Bollywood’s Commando series
could be the basis for a PhD in opportunism. Commando: A One Man Army, released in 2013, was about a loyal
Armyman being abandoned by the Indian government when he is caught in enemy
territory. Off screen, India got a new government in 2014 and with it arrived
the Hindi film industry’s open subservience to the establishment. So Commando 2: The Black Money Trail
in 2017 batted for demonetisation. And now, as Islamophobia rages across India,
here comes Commando 3 with its
cringe-worthy condescension towards India’s Muslims.
The third instalment of Commando,
this one too starring Vidyut Jammwal, is directed by Aditya Datt
whose best-known feature so far is the Emraan Hashmi-Tanushree Dutta-starrer Aashiq Banaya Aapne. Jammwal’s Karan Singh Dogra this time is on a mission to track
down a London-based terrorist running a conversion racket in India that draws
innocent Hindu boys to the Islamic fold and brainwashes them into
committing violence for Allah along with other Muslims. Buraq Ansari (Gulshan Devaiah) is as evil as a human
can be. We first see him heavily veiled. His face is revealed in a scene in
which he forces his little son to watch as he brutally murders a man.
Working
alongside Karan is his sidekick Bhavna Reddy played, as she was earlier, by
Adah Sharma. The mix this time is sought to be revved up by the addition of the
British Intelligence agent Mallika Sood (Angira Dhar) who is based on
the same prototype that has yielded the Bond franchise’s ‘Bond girl’.
The
women in Commando 3 are occasionally
given space to display their fighting skills and in that limited time Sharma
and Dhar show us how immensely capable they are, but make no mistake about
this: the primary purpose of their existence in this screenplay is to compete
for Karan’s attention so that while he goes about the serious business of
saving the country, we never forget that he leaves la femmes weak at the
knees.
The
subordination of women to the hero in Commando
3 is nothing compared to the film’s messaging about Muslims. The problem is
not with the depiction of a terror network operating in the name of Islam –
that such organisations exist must of course be acknowledged; the problem lies
with the manner in which this film seeks to hold all Indian Muslims accountable
for Buraq Ansari’s actions in a way that the public
discourse has never held India’s entire majority community accountable for the
wrongdoings of individual members.
Commando 3 is strategic while building its case. It is
careful to prepare alibis for itself even as it lectures India’s Muslims about
their duty towards the nation at large and their Hindu brethren in particular.
For instance, mention is made of beef-related lynchings and other genuine
grievances of the Muslim community, which can be held up to anyone who accuses
the film of being one-sided. Here’s the catch though: if majoritarian
fundamentalists object to the acknowledgement of these crimes by their group,
the defence is no doubt a scene right at the start where a Muslim terrorist was
shown instigating his flunkeys to kill a calf to stir up trouble. The
insinuation is that even the lynchings of Muslims have been the fault of
Muslims.
While
the principal evil Muslim in Commando 3
spends his time plotting against Hindus, the good Hindu hero waits for a Muslim
terrorist to finish his namaz before capturing him. Oh look ye, respect!
(Minor spoilers in the next two sentences) The sermonising directed at Muslims peaks in a video appeal Karan
publishes, aimed at inspiring the Muslim masses to thwart Buraq’s plan to
attack the Hindu masses. The video and the subsequent scenes of Muslims rising
up in response are dripping with a patronising attitude. (Spoiler alert
ends) They are also amateurishly written
and in your face, epitomised by that shot before the credits roll of a Hindu
man and a Muslim man standing shoulder to shoulder right after they together
fire a flaming arrow at an effigy of Ravan.
Those
who wish to understand the difference between the
mischief-mongering by Commando 3 and
a factual portrayal of Islamic terrorism would be well
advised to watch Anubhav Sinha’s Hindi film Mulk (2018).
Commando 3’s minuses don’t end with its troubling
politics. The Indian agents in London come up trumps despite being
dumb, lax, over-confident and foolhardy, because these qualities are what the
writing team perceives as bravery. (Some people may deem the next sentence a spoiler) For
instance, both Bhavna and Karan, despite being undercover agents, blow their
own cover early in the narrative to draw the snake out of his hole: she tweets
about Karan from her actual ID and he releases a video to the media
revealing his identity, both of which are somehow meant to be clever
moves. (Spoiler alert ends)
Jammwal, Sharma and Dhar do what is required of them well
enough: she and she scrap over him, all three beat up people, they glare,
they stare. I experienced a little heartache though at the sight of a fine actor like
Gulshan Devaiah reduced to over-acting as Buraq Ansari.
Commando 3 is technically glossy and the fight
choreography is slick. The writing though is contrived. The film is filled with lines like this one
tossed at Buraq by Karan, “Pehle
purdon mein chhupa karta thha, ab mardon mein?” (Earlier you hid behind a
veil, now you hide behind men?) as the latter walks towards him surrounded
by armed guards, but the dialoguebaazi is tiresome and soulless. Even if this were
not the case, it is appalling that the populist stereotypes in the script target an already
vulnerable people.
It
becomes evident in the end though that
none of this comes from a place of conviction. So unsure of itself is Commando 3, that after all its bloodshed
and bhashans the end credits run
alongside not one but two formulaic song and dance routines.
First comes this kiddish Hinglish number lip-synced by Karan:
Tere peechhe main
Mere aage tu run-run
Kabhi aage tu
Kabhi peechhe main fun-fun
Dekhega jalwa ab toh tu
With my gun-gun
Ek hi toh bachke niklega
Yeh toh done-done.
As if
that is not ludicrous enough, there follows Karan dancing with the two
women in skimpy, sexy attire, ending on an image of him in silhouette
with a Ravan in the background.
Umm.
Let me
try my hand at lyric writing:
Now
that this piece is through
I’m
gonna run-run
Watching
Commando 3
Has
been no fun-fun
This
series should have stopped
With Commando One-One
Give
us a break, please
Just
be done-done.
Rating (out
of five stars): 1
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CBFC Rating (India):
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UA
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Running time:
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134 minutes
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This review has also been published on Firstpost:
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