Uri - The Surgical Strike [dir. Aditya Dhar]

Indian cinema's history of military films has been spotty. Unlike Hollywood's close ties with the US armed forces allowing the studios access to military equipment and manpower, relevant technical information and other resources, in return for a positive heroic showcase to the public of the actions of these forces (and cushy consultant positions with showbiz exposure for current and former military personnel), there are at most a handful of such collaborations out here. Then there is the matter of wedding a battlefield story to the stereotype ingredient-based melodrama structure of mainstream Indian films down the ages. Pushing aside the ones where the protagonist being a soldier is just a throwaway backdrop detail for a standard Bollywood product, it is hardly a surprise that we have very few military action focused movies (and only a subset of those have reflected contemporary / near contemporary events). Chetan Anand's Haqeeqat (1964) inspired by the Sino-Indian war of 1962, would appear to have established the paradigm subsequent desi battlefield narratives styled themselves upon. In the more recent past JP Dutta contributed to the Indian war movie genre with Border (1997), LoC Kargil (2003) and Paltan (2018). But these films in order offered steeply diminishing returns, on account of shamelessly rehashed story and character beats, and reduced quality of execution. Almost the only Indian film that seriously explores the soldier's psyche and his place in society is actor-director Nana Patekar's 1991 film Prahaar (and even that eschews the military backdrop in its second half).

Which is not to say that Aditya Dhar's ambitious debut film, based on the covert military ops carried out by Indian armed forces in enemy territory defies convention. Here again you have the heroic Indian soldier, who having faced tragedy from terrorism / foreign aggression, goes on a mission of national (and to some extent personal) vendetta to tell the enemy that their actions will, following Newton's Third Law, cause equal and opposite reactions. Critic Baradwaj Rangan's review has even likened it in outline to 80's Bollywood gratuitous revenge dramas like Hukumat (1987). But there is a focus and visceral propulsion in Uri's execution that invigorates the genre for Indian cinema. In few and bold strokes the film introduces its small cast of main characters and sets up the central conflict, the attack on the army camp at Uri in Kashmir by four insurgents who ended up murdering 21 soldiers before they were felled. The tragic blow to the armed forces and the nation at large is supplemented by a sense of personal loss when our protagonist covert ops specialist Major Vihaan (Vicky Kaushal) loses his brother-in-law to that massacre. Vihaan, who had by then shifted to a desk job to care for his ailing mother (a dignified if prop-like Swaroop Sampat), asks to be reinstated to field operations in the retaliation planned by the Indian army.

The entire second half of the film is devoted to the mechanics of planning and execution of the retaliation through "surgical strikes" hitting terrorist training camps in enemy territory - reconnaissance of enemy locations, gathering information through spies and from captured hostiles, detailing of operation parameters and preparation of the people involved in the actual op. Unlike an all-out war with rank-and-file soldiers, the surgical strikes employed a select band of elite warriors armed with rigorous training and technological aid. Modern combat rifles, night-vision goggles, binoculars with face recognition tech, body-mounted cameras, surveillance drones - as much as anything else, the film serves as a showcase for the sophistication and technical competence of the Indian armed forces as a world-class fighting force. The visual slickness is complimented by the laser-sighted focus of the script - there's no time wasted on throwaway romances (none of the women in the film are love interests), cloying religious integration (Vihaan passes by a group of his team members offering namaz but no big deal is made of it),  no one makes big speeches and the patriotism is not expressed through bovine-tempered never-ending ballads. The film revels in a spirit of (positive-minded) aggressive nationalism. At the same time, it is careful not to espouse a tasteless political bias. The characters standing in for real-life politicians are shown to be supportive of military decisions, but not directing them; Rajit Kapur may be made up like Narendra Modi but he behaves with a restraint lacking in the real McCoy.

There are of course the usual exaggerations and fabrications of any mainstream film. A bird-shaped drone used for overhead spying is shown to be the brainchild of a college intern at the DRDO (even if it was, wouldn't the army just ask the kid to write down the instructions instead of depending on him to take part in actual espionage ops?). The enemy is depicted as an indolent moron - Pak military council members shown to be more interested in golf and yakhni pulao than studying India's response to their activities, none of the militant camps have watch towers or night sentries - and the Indian soldiers have almost no worthwhile challenge in carrying out the mission (you're making stuff up anyway, why not invent things that add more tension in the narrative?). But as part of the new breed of Bollywood cinema, Uri-TSS is commendable. Some years ago, such a vehicle would have been unthinkable without a big star name attached and all the baggage that comes with that. Vicky Kaushal is not the first name that comes up when you think action hero, but he turned out to be the perfect choice. He invests himself physically and mentally into the character of Major Vihaan, and infuses him with a controlled exterior and an inner fire (how you wish some of this attitude had shown in his Raazi character). When he gets his slow-motion walk towards the end of the film, you feel he has earned it. The supporting actors (Paresh Rawal, Mohit Raina, Kirti Kulhari, Yami Gautam) may not sport well-rounded characterizations but they have defined roles and are not just props to accentuate the protagonist. Unlike other Indian military and patriotic films, Uri refrains from endless brandishing of the national flag / anthem, seeking instead to interest Generation Now in how cool and exciting an armed forces life can be for those that can handle the pressure...and yes, being terrific popcorn entertainment for the rest of us.

Murder by Death [dir. Robert Moore]

Written by Neil Simon (The Odd Couple, The Sunshine Boys), 1976's Murder by Death (MbD) is a spoof on classic archetype sleuth stories / films. The sleuths of MbD - barely veiled variations on the famous fictional detectives including Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Nick and Nora Charles (from The Thin Man series), Charlie Chan and Sam Spade - are "cordially invited to a dinner and a murder". They congregate at a remotely located mansion where they are greeted by a blind butler (There's a deaf-mute cook too, and as you may well guess, the combination makes for some peculiar circumstances). The major parts in this farce are played by a bevy of stars including Alec Guinness (irrepressible as the blind butler), David Niven, Maggie Smith, Peter Falk and, oh yes, Peter Sellers caricaturing to the hilt as the Charlie Chan character.

After assorted bits of comedy for the introduction and settling down of each sleuth party in their strange host's home they settle down to dinner, during which, in a nod to Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians / And Then There Were None, the host makes his appearance in the flamboyant form of Truman Capote and challenges each of them with the prize of a million dollars to solve by dawn a murder that is to occur at midnight (and I'm not sure he didn't say In Cold Blood), while failure will mean the loss of their reputations.

MbD is a no-holds-barred farce on the stereotype rigmarole of the whodunit. It has interesting elements, like the culture clash between the genteel fastidious sort of detective Christie created and the hardboiled gumshoe dick. Some of the comedy like the scenes played between Guinness' sightless butler and the deaf-mute cook for the dinner party is priceless. But given the premise and the stellar cast I expected greater sparkle. Beyond the introduction of the different sleuths, there is not as much fun extracted from their interaction. And Sellers' Oriental detective is problematic. I wouldn't have minded the racial stereotype so much (apparently Sellers had deliberately heightened the caricature to draw attention to the silliness of white people playing non-white roles) if it was actually funny, but most of it is just awkward. And while one understands that the script aims to poke fun at the ludicrousness one comes across in the denouement of many suspense stories, MbD's climax feels cloyingly overdone. I was looking for a comfortably funny film spoofing my favorite genre, but this one with all its promise doesn't quite hit the mark.

For those interested in details of the blu-ray from Shout Factory:

The disc features a rather decent transfer although the image is not free of age-related damage, and the compression (especially in the scenes of fog) is a little suspect. The lossless mono audio is fine within limitations, with a nice boost to the music. Extras include an okey-dokey short interview with Neil Simon (in which he mostly seems to describe specific scenes of the film) an audio commentary by a Mr. Lee Gambin (who seems to refer to everybody as incredible and makes such wincing gaffes that I turned it off after a while).