290. Romeo Akbar Walter; movie review
Cert 12A
139 mins
BBFC advice: Contains moderate violence, occasional bloody images
Another week and another movie in which the fierce patriotism of India's military is trumpeted.
Yes, the motherland is great and those dreadful neighbours in Pakistan get what is coming to them.
I have never experienced wartime and consequently have never been the target of the type of propaganda movies which come out of the sub-continent.
In recent times, Alia Bhatt, Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Hrithik Roshan and Saif Ali Khan are among the Bollywood superstars who have played Indian spies over the border.
Now it is the turn of John Abraham in Robbie Grewal's Romeo Akbar Walter.
Abraham plays an actor whose father was killed in the Indo-China war and, consequently, his mother is against him working for his country.
Nevertheless, India's foreign intelligence agency spots his potential and taps him up during the 1971 crisis which led to the formation of Bangladesh.
Initially, our hero is reticent but soon agrees to befriend a senior Pakistani official (Anil George) and pass information back to the Indians.
The central difficulty with Grewal's film is how easy it is for Romeo Ali to become Akbar Malik and raise very little suspicion.
Ok, it is true that one villainous officer, played by Sikander Kher, smells a rat but he is on his own in his negative view of this mysterious new interloper.
Romeo Akbar Walter is typical of so many of the rah-rah-rah films which surround India's angry relationship with its neighbours, again making Indian officers out to be martyrs and the enemy to be stupid infidels.
The consequence is that we never have an impartial view of the conflict and instead end up with one-sided movies such as this.
Romeo Akbar Walter is nothing more than an attempt to convince the public that India is on the side of right and they should be loyal subjects.
With that backdrop, it is difficult to summon the energy to get behind Abraham's hero even when he is up against it.
On reflection, he does as good a job as he can.
Reasons to avoid: Same old pro-India rah-rah-rah-ing
Laughs: None
Jumps: None
Vomit: None
Nudity: None
Overall rating: 6/10
Did you know? Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi won the 1971 war decisively — splitting Pakistan into two, with the new country, Bangladesh, consisting of over 60 per cent of Pakistan's population.
The final word. John Abraham: "Getting the Kashmiri accent right and understanding the back-story of each character were also very important. We shot this film in 46 days, so to get everything right, including the looks and shooting in 80 locations, was not easy. It is probably the most taxing shoot of my career." Eastern Eye
0 Response to "290. Romeo Akbar Walter; movie review"
Posting Komentar