Uri: The Surgical Strike
18th September 2016
HQ 12 Inf Bde, Uri
At half-past five on that morning, four terrorists from a major Pakistan-backed outfit infiltrated the rear of the troops’ living area and opened fire. Lobbing grenades and spraying bullets, they set tents housing inducting and de-inducting troops on fire. It was the deadliest attack on military personnel in nearly three decades of the Kashmir insurgency. Nineteen soldiers were killed in cold blood.
29th September 2016
Line of Control
Teams of Indian Army Para (SF) commandos landed in PoK and neutralised a number of terror launchpads. Between thirty-five and seventy terrorists were killed. It was the second widely-reported surgical strike in Indian military history, coming a year after a surgical strike in Myanmar.
Given Hindi cinema’s new-found penchant for wanting to tell real-life stories, it was only a matter of time till the Uri attack and the subsequent surgical strike became events filmmakers would want to delve into. Lo and behold, there are two productions about the events! The first of those productions, Uri: The Surgical Strike, helmed by debutant Aditya Dhar and backed by Ronnie Screwvala, is one of the first major Hindi films of 2019.
The film opens with a convoy being ambushed in Chandel, Manipur, following which Para (SF) commandos conduct a cross-border surgical strike at a militant base in Myanmar. Leading the strike is super Fauji Maj. Vihaan Singh Shergill, a man who gets absolutely nothing wrong and brings home everyone. Director Aditya Dhar establishes the tone of his film with the initial sequences – snazzily-designed action, brilliant sound work and video game-like photography.
When the film is finally over, you come away admiring these things about it, but not most of what is in the middle.
Soon we see Vihaan asking to be given premature retirement to care for his Alzheimer’s-stricken mother, a request he takes back after the Prime Minister of India (a Modi lookalike played by Rajit Kapur) emotionally blackmails him by saying ‘Desh bhi toh maa hai.’ So Vihaan settles for a desk job at the IHQ in Delhi, much to the dismay of his buddy and brother-in-law Karan, also a Para (SF) commando.
Tragedy strikes when Karan is martyred in the Uri attack a year later, and a pumped-up Vihaan walks up to the Chief of Army Staff (Shishir Sharma) and asks that he be allowed to lead the retaliatory surgical strike.
The strike is planned by an Ajit Doval-lookalike by the name of Govind Bhardwaj (Paresh Rawal) who has a penchant for breaking cell phones when angered by the news that they have served as a medium for and a nurse-turned-intelligence agent Pallavi (Yami Gautam), with help from across the border.
As mentioned earlier, the film’s overall appeal is heightened as a result of the various components: Shashwat Sachdev’s punk pop-rock music blends excellently with the complex action designed by Stefan Richter, aided by the fantastic sound work by Nihar Ranjan Samal and Biswadeep Deepak Chatterjee, who seem keen on delivering the goods where sounds of bullets flying and explosions are concerned.
Mitesh Mirchandani turns the camera into one nervously energetic piece of equipment as it whirls and swivels around the place. Not once though is this approach overused, largely because the action set pieces are well spaced-out and because Mirchandani uses different tricks to deliver on his front.
The performances from the supporting cast are earnest, though the actors don’t seem to have been given enough to work with. Paresh Rawal disappoints with his inability to do something with the Doval lookalike character, and Yami Gautam gets a raw deal too, though she does make more of an effort than Rawal. Mohit Raina is pretty good in the handful of scenes he appears in, and Kirti Kulhari does a fair job as the grounded IAF pilot.
The film rests on the (bulky) shoulders of Vicky Kaushal, who fits the bill of a Para (SF) officer to the T, both with his physique and with his manner. Kaushal’s acting ability isn’t really tested, but he is still as good as ever, pulling the film along in the slowest of moments with subtle movements and expressions.
The film’s biggest weakness is Dhar’s writing. It’s quite flat in the manner it sketches out the characters, their inter-personal relationships and even the scenes, a couple of which crack you up and a few that leave you with a lump in the throat (none more so than the one in which Karan’s young daughter salutes his coffin and yells out his unit’s battle cry – a scene clearly inspired from what Col. MN Rai’s daughter did at his funeral) but the rest is pretty formulaic. The characters are stock factory creations: the badass female agent, the grounded pilot in search of redemption, the bespectacled geeky kid, the resilient bosses, the sick mother, the bereaved sister. Even Vihaan is dealt with primarily in broad strokes, with little to mark him out as a protagonist. I also take objection to how everyone from Doval, Modi and Parrikar to Gen. Suhag and Lt. Gen. Hooda are depicted but the Chinar Corps GOC Lt. Gen. Dua and the Para CO get no screentime whatsoever, but that’s probably just me.
Dhar’s direction makes up for his writing, and he delivers a true-blue military action film which is enjoyable despite its faults. Though the first hour moves along sluggishly, he thereafter puts his foot on the accelerator and doesn’t take it off till the last moment. While I do have a bone to pick with the amount of screentime the politicians get, Dhar managed to win me over with how earnest an attempt he has made to make this film his ode to the Indian Army.
Uri: The Surgical Strike is a fairly enjoyable film which works despite its faults, thanks to Mitesh Mirchandani, Vicky Kaushal and Aditya Dhar, who may just have delivered the first legit military action movie of the Hindi language.
Cinephile Stock 
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