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War movie review: Hrithik Roshan-Tiger Shroff drama is high on action, low on story

Hindustan Times | ByMonika Rawal Kukreja
Jul 06, 2020 02:36 AM IST

War movie review: With swag, style and sass in abundance, where is the substance in Hrithik Roshan and Tiger Shroff’s new film?

War
Director - Siddharth Anand
Cast - Hrithik Roshan, Tiger Shroff, Vaani Kapoor

War movie review: Tiger Shroff and Hrithik Roshan are pitted against each other.
War movie review: Tiger Shroff and Hrithik Roshan are pitted against each other.

War has swag, style and sass in abundance, and comes peppered with high-octane action scenes, car-and-bike chases and jaw-dropping series of twists. What else do you expect from a film that has Hrithik Roshan and Tiger Shroff as the lead pair?

Directed by Siddharth Anand, War is an espionage thriller that serves you with just the right amount of action, humour and tops it with ridiculously good-looking people. However, don’t expect too much from story because with two bonafide action stars fighting it out on the big screen, everything else is secondary.

Watch the War trailer here 

War opens with Kabir (Hrithik Roshan), a rogue agent, killing his own. Through a flashback sequence, it is established how he met Khalid (Tiger Shroff) who went on to join his unit in an intelligence agency. Story takes an interesting turn when Khalid, who has always worshipped Kabir as his mentor, is assigned the task of finding and arresting him. Khalid is also supposed to find out why Kabir went bad and another flashback sequence post intermission reveals his reasons.

Watch War public review

 

Throughout War, Hrithik and Tiger’s onscreen camaraderie is on point. It is the USP of the film — just as makers intended. Each frame where the two appear together receives whistles and cheers from fans. Whether they’re fighting or dancing, or just flaunting their six-pack abs and chiselled bodies — it’s nothing short of a visual treat. The best aspect of War is that no actor is aiming for one-upmanship, instead you see them feeding off each other’s energy. There’s a pleasant comic vibe, too, between Hrithik and Tiger and director Siddharth Anand uses it cleverly without it sounding awkward.

Hrithik — Bollywood’s resident Greek god, unapologetically flaunts his age and swag. You’d love those wrinkles. Tiger — the hot favourite among youth — delivers an honest performance even though he seems absolutely star struck by his reel and real life mentor. But who’s complaining?

Unfortunately, War doesn’t give any scope to its female lead to perform. Vaani Kapoor only appears in the film in its second half, and before you can even understand what her role in the plot is, she disappears. The 20-minute forced cameo, with a song thrown in, doesn’t impress one bit. Vaani’s role seems to be limited to adding glamour to the film. It’s sad that even in today’s day and age, that’s what many filmmakers cast female actors in their film for.

And you’ll feel the same for supporting actors too. Fine performers such as Ashutosh Rana and Soni Razdan are wasted in War, even though they somewhat justify their screen time with whatever little comes their way. Anupriya Goenka, however, does make her presence felt.

The one element that you get in abundance in War is beautifully-choreographed action. The first half has these sequences in plenty and it only gets better in the second half. Shot at exotic international locales like Morocco and Portugal, as well as Delhi and Kerala, the film excels in the action department. War gives a callback to action extravaganzas such as Mission Impossible and Fast & Furious, and Hrithik’s earlier outings Dhoom 2 and Bang Bang.

Amid all this, you wonder what happened to the story if at all there was any. Just like we had Saaho a month back which was all things action but no story, War too makes you question why filmmakers don’t put enough thought into having a substantial plot. War suffers from a relatively weak screenplay that does not go unnoticed as the two good-looking actors overshadow everything else.

Also, no matter which genre a film belongs too, if it’s Bollywood, you can’t do without songs. However, we have no complaints as it is a treat to watch Tiger and Hrithik dancing together. Jai Jai Shivshankar might seem like it came out of nowhere but when these two show you their moves, you just can’t enough of them.

War, a big spectacle film, is definitely worth a watch for the sheer joy of seeing this dream pair of Hrithik and Tiger on the silver screen.

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