Filmmaker Siddharth Anand’s Fighter is touted to be India’s first aerial action film. It revolves around a group of Indian Air Force officers. The story starts off in 2019 when a combat unit Air Dragons is created in response to the increase in the illegal cross border operations by Pakistan. The unit consists of Squadron Leaders Shamsher Pathania aka Patty (Hrithik Roshan), Minal Rathore aka Minni (Deepika Padukone), Sartaj Gill (Karan Singh Grover), Basheer Khan (Akshay Oberoi) and Sukhi (Banveen Singh), a junior officer. The group is headed by Rakesh Jai Singh (Anil Kapoor).

The Air Dragons officers are asked to bond with each other. During this time, Patty and Minni get close. There are issues between Patty and Rakesh Jai Singh due to a disturbing past incident. Meanwhile, the officers are sent to Jammu for an operation. During this time, a suicide bomber kills a large number of CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) jawans in an attack in Pulwama.

The incident, obviously, enrages Patty and team. They decide to fight back and take revenge. Air Dragons succeed in their mission. However, the dreaded terrorist Azhar Akhtar (Rishabh Ravinder Sawhney) has more deadly plans up his sleeve against India.

A major highlight of Fighter is the aerial action scenes and there are plenty of them. Apart from keeping you thoroughly interested and, at times, at the edge of your seat (especially if you see the film in Imax, like I did), these scenes also boast of good VFX and camerawork. Of course, a good amount of creative liberty is taken since it’s a mainstream commercial film. The movie also deserves to be praised for the detailing it follows with respect to the professional lives of the air force pilots.

Fighter, however, at the heart of it is just like a regular cross-border action drama with loads of patriotism. Anyone following Hindi cinema for even around 25 years would have seen plenty of this in a number of yesteryear films. The movie has all the clichés one would expect from a film of this type, from half-baked, half-intelligent and immature Pakistani military officers to the heroic dialogue baazi between the good and the bad guys.  

The film also suffers from being lengthy. This is felt in the second half where, surprisingly, action and the subject of terrorism take a backseat and the narrative switches onto a number of emotional moments born out of the interpersonal relations between the characters. All those who saw the trailer and felt that this would be an out-and-out action thriller are bound to have an unpleasant surprise. Thankfully, the film makes up for this in the climax.

Vishal-Sheykhar’s music is decent. Apart from ‘Sher Khul Gaye’, the theme song ‘Vande Mataram’ is not only touching but it also adds to the emotions in a lot of situations. But by the time the film ends, one starts feeling that the track is overused.

Fighter is helped a lot by the performances. Hrithik Roshan fits the character of Patty to the T. He is impressive while portraying different shades of his character. And it’s difficult to believe that he is 50. Deepika Padukone is likeable and determined as Minni. Anil Kapoor commands respect, even with a single glance. Akshay Oberoi and Karan Singh Grover offer fine support. In the role of the mastermind terrorist, Rishabh Ravinder Sawhney is just average.

Overall: Despite the negatives, Fighter still turns out to be a one-time watch and for this, the revenge operation in the first half and, more importantly, the climax are largely responsible.

Rating: 3 out of 5

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