CAST: AJAY DEVGN, RAKUL PREET SINGH, AMITABH BACHCHAN, BOMAN IRANI, AJEY NAGAR, ANGIRA DHAR, AKANKSHA SINGH
DIRECTED BY: AJAY DEVGN
BLUF: Vikrant Khanna is a pilot for skyline airways and is one hell of a cocky, big swinging D in the way he conducts himself. So much so that the background score to his airport walk is a song called “Alpha Male”. Get the drift.
He is flying 150 passengers from Dubai to Cochin when a cyclone forces them to divert the flight to Trivandrum.
Because of an error by ATC Cochin and a decision made due to limited availability of information and visibility, Khanna lands the aircraft with all passengers alive on Runway 34 on Trivandrum airport. However the DGCA wants to conduct an inquiry and the movie in the second half is about that enquiry.
THE MEAT AND THE POTATOES
Of superhuman intelligence and with a photographic memory, Khanna takes decisions that are often toeing a thin line between legal and not legal.
On an overnight stop over in Dubai, he meets up with a friend in a club, invites a lady to join them and drinks alcohol.
The movie shows arrive at the airport to report for his flight with his co-pilot Tanya Albuquerque( whose last name he deliberately mispronounces) and ask for a coffee with a disprin. Tanya is a junior pilot an after disagreeing with Khanna on a few decisions, succumbs to listening to his professional calls. The pilots finally land the airplane at Trivandrum in the middle of the cyclone when they cannot even see the runway.
Narayan Vedant ( Amitabh Bachchan) is the main investigator from DGCA who is investigating the landing and the second half of the movie is the over the top trial.
IN THE KNOW
The movie seemed to inspired in part by Sully (Tom Hanks) and by Flight ( Denzel Washington). The writers Sandeep Kewlani & Aamil Keeyan Khan try to keep the story on track but over the top dramatization for a seemingly Indian audience kills the thrill.
The court room sequences where the frame of Mr Bachchan may have intended to over power the demure of Rakul doesnt look so appealing.
The face off between Bachchan and Devgn should have ben the core of the movie but falls flat with zero impact.
The dialogue delivery of Mr. Bachchan is unbcomingly Milord variety where in intimidating Rakul’s charater, the entire baritone-heavy dialogues in ‘shudh Hindi and their translation in Oxford English just kills the pulp fiction.
Rahul is fresh and very good in keeping Tanya’s character arc intact.
Boman Irani, Angira Dhar, and Aakanksha Singh are unexploited. And why did Carry Mineti even want to be himself in a movie?
Some of the camera work is awesome. Especially the flight landing sequences. The music credits are with Jasleen Royal for the movie so congrats to this girl. “Fall” as a track is awesome.
Throughout the movie kept thinking why more effort wasnt put into reimagining the script as non-linear. Maybe start with the courtrooms and then go back and forth with the events and the investigation.
Also, our perennial issue with Indian movies. Long. There was no need for that Bachchan scene of recreation of a Mangalore crash or the just the justification of the length of the movie if some good chopping would have been deployed.
So, Ajay, we love that you want to direct movies. But maybe direct more and get better editors next time.
