It’s a battle of swags

Review

Film: War 2

Cast: Hrithik Roshan, NT Rama Rao Jr, Kiara Advani, Ashutosh Rana, Dishita Sehgal, Anil Kapoor and Varun Badola

Director: Ayan Mukerji

Rating Two and a half stars

What happens when two superstars come together? One, Hrithik Roshan as Kabir, a bona fide member of YRF spy universe, who headlined the prequel. The other, super sensation from the South, NTR Jr, makes a new entry but in no less powerful role. Well, the movie becomes a fan-service, a showcase of these two heavyweights. Thus War 2 is as much a battle of their swags as face-offs between their muscle power and show of strengths.

For the world, rogue spy Kabir is still a mercenary but as audiences we soon learn he is a patriot who believes in the dictum; death before dishonor, service before self and of course India first. NTR Jr as Major Vikram too is a desbhakt. Or is he? If you have watched War, you know nothing is what appears in this spy-game. ‘Hero ko villain banana aur villain ko hero… tumhara shauk hai kya’… Well, it certainly seems to be the motto of the writer. The story credit belongs to Aditya Chopra.

Not that the story is much to write home about… except the premise. The enemy this time is not a terror group but something far more sinister. It’s a conglomerate of businessmen (and women) from around the world, mostly our neighbouring nations. Their mission is to control countries and expectedly this time, the target is India.

Before their nefarious designs are foiled, the movie moves at break neck speed. One moment we are in Japan, the other on Somalian waters and then it’s Spain… But, this is no tourist guide, for all locales are dipped in one colour, which is action.

Action reigns in every other frame and is handled by a battery of top-notch action directors such as Anal Arasu, Spiro Razatos, Craig Macrae, Se-yeong Oh and Sunil Rodrigues. If Hrithik makes a grand entry as one-man-army squishing and slicing men, an equally long extended action sequence is bestowed upon the other heartthrob NTR Jr. But this is only a trailer… picture abhi baki hai!

Think of any conceivable place, moving trains, flying planes, choppy waters, there are dozens of Mission Impossible moments. As the two heroes fight not just each other but also the laws of gravity, you can only sit back, relax and enjoy. Only the three-hour-long movie, after a point the endless fights, turns exhausting. The only time action juggernaut pauses is when post interval we get a longish backstory of friends-turned-foes. Do we need to name who they are?

Red herrings are aplenty. The one which truly has us surprised is one concerning Anil Kapoor, who sadly doesn’t get to do much otherwise in the part of RAW chief Vikrant Kaul. Kiara Advani as Wing Commander Kavya Luthra too has her moment of glory right at the onset, even gets a set action piece with none other than Hrithik himself, but is mostly relegated to the background. In case you are wondering about the sizzling chemistry between two beautiful people, Kiara and Hrithik, well the real couple here is Hrithik and NTR. Both have their swag and swagger intact and keep the momentum going. NTR’s part is cheekier of the lot and gets to mouth some interesting one-liners written by Abbas Tyrewala.

Though director Ayan Mukerji tries to add a few cues like the acronym MICE, the second outing of hugely successful War, is less a spy-game and more of a massy film riding high on action and the individual charisma of its megastars. We don’t know whether as opening scene in the movie goes, Hrithik can make a wolf whimper or not, but, together the Hrithik-NTR Jr duo can certainly charm the birds from the trees. Only, don’t go looking for an intelligent spy thriller.