FILM REVIEW SACHIN CHATTE
Film: Sky Force
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Veer Pahariya, Sara Ali Khan
Directed by: Sandeep Kewlani, Abhishek Anil Kapur
Duration: 2 hours 5 minutes
Rating: * *
Last week’s release Azaad was about a senior pro, an apprentice and a horse. This week’s release Sky Force is about a senior pro, an apprentice and fighter aircrafts. Last year, during Republic Day, Hrithik Roshan was battling it out in Fighter, this year, it is
Akshay Kumar.
This film is inspired by the true incidents that happened in the 1965 Indo-Pak war when India retaliated by attacking the Sargodha air base in Pakistan. But as it happens with Hindi cinema and stories inspired by true events, the masala quotient overshadows the real-life stories. When you feel a tinge of emotion during the end credits when the pictures of the real life heroes are shown, but don’t feel even an iota of it during the film, you know that the adaptation has been far from perfect.
On the plus side, Sky Force is a relatively shorter and crisper film that clocks just around two hours – this is including the couple of songs that have been inserted for no good reason. The ambition and the scale of the film is big, even though a lot of VFX is used for the action scenes. The film has its moments but the screenplay is patchy and as a result, it never rises above
the ordinary.
Set in 1965 during the war, most of the film is in flashback. Akshay Kumar plays wing commander KO Ahuja who interrogates a Pakistani prisoner of war (Sharad Kelkar). After the usual slow motion introductions, we also meet Vijaya (Veer Pahariya), a young ace fighter pilot, who like most ace fighter pilots doesn’t follow orders given by the seniors. This is an all-male film with the ladies playing a blink and miss role. Soha Ali Khan plays Vijaya’s wife and they are expecting their first child while Nimrat Kaur plays Ahuja’s doting wife.
Not a lot happens in the initial half, except for those practice missions and camaraderie building. It is a way of foreshadowing that someone is going to die. The film shifts gears when Pakistan launches an attack with their superior American fighter planes, on an Indian base. The damage is substantial, prompting the Indians to avenge it with some radical plans like crossing into enemy territory and destroying their fighter jets. Those scenes are decently executed but post the attack, Vijaya goes missing. Life moves on for the rest but Ahuja is determined to get to the bottom of it.
By and large, the film plays it by the numbers – the story has some value but screenplay is ordinary. It tries to give it an authenticity by telling us on which day the incidents took place and at what time but for that to be effective, the film should have a consistent tone and not have a wing commander hanging on a chandelier during a song.
Akshay Kumar could pretty much sleep walk through this role, he has been there done that. Veer Pahariya is passable; he is mostly seen in an aircraft that has to work harder
than him.
