‘War 2’ Movie Review: Two Heroes, No Spectacle, No Debacle

On (very expensive) paper, War 2 continues the trademarks of the YRF Spy Universe. The globe-trotting reaches a point where it’s just showing off: Japan, Spain, Italy, Abu Dhabi, Switzerland, probably Siberia. Characters dare not meet in a non-exotic (or local) landscape; conversations that could be emails happen in ice caves too. The set-pieces feature cobblestoned car chases, a snowy samurai slaughterhouse (with two expressive wolves), physics-mocking airplane action, speeding train accidents, ships and speedboats on F1 tracks, even cable cars. I’m almost afraid to see the passports of the production crew. There’s plenty of homoerotic tension parading as male friendship (level: one rod pierces two bodies), a dance-off, furtive glances above the clouds, tragic lines like “I couldn’t belong to anybody — not even my country — after you”.

Even the trajectory of conceit and plot points is familiar. Fabled Indian spy Kabir (Hrithik Roshan) returns as a freelance mercenary and a traitor only to be revealed as an undercover agent infiltrating a new global terrorist outfit only for a new-look R&AW to unleash their best supersoldier Vikram (NTR Jr) on Kabir’s trail only for their bromance to hijack the mission only for a pre-interval twist to reveal divided loyalties and a 70s-style backstory only for…you get the gist. Even the twists have twists. The ideological war — as in most YRF entries like Pathaan and the Tiger movies — is between old-fashioned patriotism and modern jingoism. Basically, it’s between two eras and languages of faith: ‘service before self’ is pitted against a ‘self disguised as service’. So War 2 trades the master-versus-protege gimmick of War (where Roshan showed Tiger Shroff who our Zaddy is) for a North-versus-South gimmick, where the pan-Indian rift between two ‘regions’ is exploited by a cartel of South Asian industrialists (the desi representative is named Gautam) and evil politicians.

The casting is a commercial choice to expand viewer demographics, but it makes sense too. The narrative framework is alive to today’s discourse on democracy and power. I like that the film-making and staging adapt to the ‘culture’ of the hero on screen: Vikram gets the more god-fearing music theme (with a tiger roar) and masala-infused stunts, while Kabir gets the slick Western treatment with electric guitars and high-art brawls. The history these characters share even explains the contrast in styles: the street-smart boy takes the “gentry” kid under his wing, as if to imply that one will grow up watching single-screen mass blockbusters and the other will idolise James Bond movies (he uses Bond as a reference to train a teenager too). One’s eyes are jet-black and the others’ are digital-green. No prizes for guessing who goes grey — and by that I don’t mean Roshan and Anil Kapoor’s sideburn shades.  

But pulpy spy thrillers aren’t made on paper (paper can be turned into pulp, but I digress scientifically). Ayan Mukerji’s War 2 goes wrong on more primal and Brahmastra-coded levels. It fumbles as both a massively-scaled genre sequel and a liberal-minded political thriller. I’ll start with the action sequences, given that they account for a huge chunk of the 3-hour runtime. They’re audaciously imagined for sure, but there’s a difference between suspension of disbelief and suspension of storytelling itself. One might claim that these moments are torn between Hindi hubris and Telugu swag. But the problem is both technical and cultural. Both the performers suffer from green-screen syndrome.  

Unlike with Shah Rukh in Pathaan, the toll of physicality and gravity and mid-stunt danger never shows in their body language. They could be dropping like a stone through the sky, swimming in space, breathing in water or having a relaxed cocktail on a beach — it’s hard to tell the difference, because their perfectly still faces have the time to exchange looks, smirk like cheshire cats and think deep thoughts. Is it fashionably tousled bedhair or survived-a-fire-and-ambush hair? The deadpan aura goes too far with Vikram in particular, whose head reacts very differently from his body. The suspense of being in life-or-death situations melts away.  

The VFX aside, the artificiality and studio acting look too obvious in this age of in-camera Mission: Impossible madness. In short, I’d pay to watch a reaction video of Tom Cruise watching War 2. The post-produced inertia can be blamed on the essence of Indian masala film-making. There’s always a reluctance to let our heroes look flustered or touchable during action spectacles — he needs to be impenetrable, making his own rules, even if he’s losing or bleeding. This often results in the lack of urgency that plagues War 2. When masculinity defeats testosterone, the enemies’ bullets become incompetent (they go everywhere except straight) and survival is never in doubt. It extends to the design of the sequences; it always seems like a few frames and reaction shots are missing when a boat magically lands onto a racing track, or a superstar walks on top of an airplane as if he’s strolling through Jogger’s Park. Despite the choreography and the volume of the effects, the ‘thrills’ feel strangely mechanical, bereft of personality and stakes.  

Then there’s the central conflict. I’ve always liked the idea of showing that Kabir and Pathaan and their ilk symbolise the ultimate underdog today: an “outdated” brand of nationalism and heroism trying to survive their new-age iterations. The concept thrived the most in Pathaan, where the protagonist did his duty but also remained human enough to challenge the way India’s democracy functions; the antagonist, too, had reasons to be vengeful and turn against the system he once worked for. Even War had a neat track of a Muslim soldier being framed and doubted. The issue with War 2 is its simplistic reading of this conflict. The antagonist here is born bitter — a readymade rebel whose survival instincts mutate into no-borders bigotry — unlike Pathaan’s Jim. Conversely, Kabir and his mentor’s ‘old-school’ love for the country is more theoretical than practical. It isn’t allowed to have any shades. You hear the word “desh” a lot in the film, but it’s seldom more than a sound. If anything, it is depicted as the sort of blind and unwavering loyalty one tends to associate with their descendants.  

In other words, the villains know precisely what India they plan to rule, while the heroes do not stop to question the India they’re fighting for. Or perhaps they cannot stop. Their duty has no space for reasoning; they are patriots by virtue of their vintage mission, not their secular being. That’s an irony bigger than the detachment it takes to not notice that the hook-step of the dance-off resembles the hook step of Vicky Kaushal’s in Tauba Tauba. It’s an irony bigger than an Indian movie franchise that resists interiority — in terms of both shooting locations and emotions — to save India. It’s also an irony bigger than the role of a female wing commander in an upscale buddy movie that closes with two bikes riding into a computer-generated sunset. The irony is one visa short of the two bikes being chased by Spanish bulls — together — as a lyrical voice-over plays.