Inspired by the 1971 Indo-Pak war, Anurag Singh’s film scores with solid action and earnest performances, but falters in the second-half, which amps up the jingoism and the dog-whistle dialogues
In one of his trademark rousing speeches from Border 2, Sunny Deol says, “Tum jahaan se bhi ghusne ki koshish karoge, aasmaan se, zameen se, samundar se, saamne ek Hindustaani fauji khadaa paaoge jo aankhon mein aankhen daal kar, seena thok kar kahegaa, himmat hai toh aa, yeh khadaa hai Hindustan!” (From wherever you’ll try and invade—land, air, sea, you’ll find an Indian soldier who looks you in the eye and says, cross if you dare, India stands in the way!) The reference to ‘land, air and sea’ is significant because it signals the sequel’s USP — it features true stories from the 1971 Indo-Pak war across all three wings of India’s armed forces, and its production has involved everything from actual tanks to the INS Vikrant, the aircraft carrier. The acting duties are divided accordingly —Deol and Dhawan’s characters are from the army, Dosanjh plays an Air Force pilot while Ahan Shetty plays a naval officer.
The film, therefore, was always going to live and die by the strength of these action set-pieces. And for the most part, Border 2 delivers a good, solid large-screen spectacle. The ground action scenes are fantastic (a climactic infantry charge led by Varun Dhawan being the pinnacle) while the underwater scenes featuring Shetty are decent. The air combat scenes are the film’s weakness, and in comparison to other recent Bollywood films like Fighter, these airborne set-pieces feel mediocre.
The performances are sincere and impactful. The screenplay is more thoughtful than I had expected, to be honest, at least in the second half. The film’s weak points are its 200-minute runtime—and the second-half screenplay, which amps up the jingoism and the dog-whistle dialogues (which in the first half is kept in check).
Punch dialogues, unironic sincerity
First, the good bits, the things that I liked about the film: Sunny Deol is in fine fettle as Lt Col Fateh Singh Kaler, even if the director overloads him with high-decibel speeches. “Kahaan tak aawaaz jaani chahiye? Lahore tak!” (You should be heard where? In Lahore!) he says at one point and it seems that he based his performance around this one line. Which is a bit of a waste because there’s much more to Deol as an actor, but Border 2 is only fleetingly interested in those softer, more vulnerable aspects. Like in one crucial scene, Deol’s character Lt Col Fateh Singh Kaler and his wife (played by Mona Singh) are in mourning, and Deol absolutely sells the grief with his eyes.
Also read: Smita Patil: The meteor who redefined Indian cinema and still refuses to fade
Ahan Shetty is diligent and hard-working as Lt Cdr MS Rawat, PVC, although his character is slightly one-tone here, the righteous man who follows his values to the point of naivety. Shetty has a strong screen presence, good diction and a lovely baritone, and I foresee great things for him in the near future. I was also fairly happy with Diljit Dosanjh’s performance as Flying Officer Nirmal Jit Singh Sekhon, PVC. So far, his Bollywood career has swung between the very good (Udta Punjab, Chamkila) and the truly awful (Detective Sherdil, Good Newwz).
Here, thankfully, the good Dosanjh turns up, straight-backed and haughty when he’s talking about his military pride, and then suddenly a much more genteel presence when joking around with Dhawan and co. Dosanjh is a fantastic, versatile, multi-dimensional performer but Bollywood needs to learn how to use him better, to give him roles that suit his strengths — Anurag Singh, with his wealth of experience in Punjabi cinema, knows exactly how to do this, giving Dosanjh just the right mixture of cockiness and unironic sincerity.
Varun Dhawan begins the film on a dour note, looking somewhat ill-at-ease as a soldier. But once the film introduces us to the friendship between Hoshiar, Sekhon and Rawat, Dhawan comes into his own. He doesn’t always nail his character Hoshiar Singh’s Haryanvi accent, but he does get the heart of this character. Hoshiar is an orphan who has no surviving immediate family, and so he has learned to become so self-sufficient that it is indistinguishable from arrogance or standoffishness. How he learns to let go of that chip on his shoulder—with a little help from his fellow soldiers, of course—makes for fascinating viewing.
I also enjoyed the film’s tender focus on the families and loved ones of our soldiers. Mona Singh is a standout as Simi, the wife of Sunny Deol’s character Lt Col Fateh Singh Kaler. The film is willing to flesh out these scenarios and up until the last twenty minutes or so, never short-changes the audience on this aspect.
Running out of steam
The film could have used better editing—a 200-minute film in this day and age tests the patience of even hardened cine-goers, and I could see people tuning out and turning to their cellphones when the second half dragged on for more than they expected. Another thing I disliked was that the Pakistani army and officials are not given even one decent, recognizable officer. A better actor would have matched Sunny Deol line for line and the film would have been elevated as a result. Just look at what Amit Sial did in the John Abraham film The Diplomat as a Pakistani ISI officer—a performance worth its weight in gold, and the film owed so much to it and to Sial.
As far as the action sequences are concerned, like I mentioned, the aerial scenes are the film’s weakness. It’s difficult to pull off an aerial fight jon-screen, truth be told — you see, oulumost audience members have no locus to understand a fighter jet’s moves, m most people have a working understanding of how a car chase work. This is why most directors opt for a VFX-heavy approach in this contexts and Anurag Singh does no different. It’s just that these specific VFX shots are a little bit patchy and not up to the standard of the rest of the film.
Also read: Why the backlash against AR Rahman is unfair and an act of cultural illiteracy
My biggest complaint, however, is that the screenplay lets itself down with a bunch of “bakraa” and “halaal”-style dialogues, lines that have been written as pure Islamophobic dog-whistles, no more and no less. Why is a Pakistani army officer taunting Kaler by saying, “Tumhaare bete ko humaare jawaanon ne tasalli se halaal kiya thaa? (Your son was calmly and deliberately slaughtered by our men).” I have had the honour of knowing a great many soldiers in my life, and not one of them would be caught dead talking like this — not to a fellow soldier, not even if the world’s number one most wanted terrorist appeared in front of them. It simply doesn’t happen; true military training simply does not allow this to happen.
Border 2 doesn’t really have any rivals for the next couple of weeks, at least, and so it’s likely to earn a lot of money at the box office. It is a good film on the whole, but it definitely missed the chance to be an outstanding film, like its illustrious predecessor.
