AN OUT AND OUT vIDyUT JAMwAL fILM

Commando

STArrING: Vidyut Jamwal, Pooja Chopra, and Jaideep Ahlawat

DIrECTED BY: Dilip Ghosh

HHH

Without the risk of exaggeration we can ‘safely’ say Vidyut Jamwal takes the kind of risks in his action scenes that we haven’t seen in any screen-hero from any part of the world. The choreographic precision with which Vidyut flips, somersaults, and fells his adversaries is a sign of an exceptionally skilled action-hero.

To be sure, a star is born in Commando

We saw Vidyut completely upstage John Abraham in the hand-to-hand heart-inmouth fight scenes in Force. Now, Vidyut proves himself a maestro of unequalled sinewy skills, gliding rather than fighting, pre-empting the adversary’s moves almost like a chess game.

With tongue firmly in shriek mode, Vidyut in one of the early stunts scenes of the film rips open a poster of Force and attacks the baddies. The action never stops. And the song breaks, especially an item song in the second-half by Nathalia Kaur, are unwelcome speed breakers.

We really don’t want to see Vidyut romance the pretty Punjabi damsel in distress played by Pooja Chopra who seems a tad too well-groomed for the rigours of the jungle.

Not that we care. We just want to see Vidyut take on the bad guys, full-force. And boy, does Vidyut deliver!

Admaker-turned-feature film director Dilip Ghosh keeps the plot wisely simple ramrod-straight and to the point.

Apart from those utterly annoying song breaks, there are no digressions from the dynamics of instant scoresettling. It’s a straight one-to-one fightto-finish between the silently simmering Commando and a satanic goon from a small-town in Punjab with no eyeballs and apparently no balls either, who believes the power of the gun and the strength of Santa-Banta SMS jokes can be coordinated in one range of activity.

Jaideep Ahlawat, last seen giving a riveting performance in Kamal Haasan’s Vishawaroop, gives the goon’s part a wacky spin. The man is half-devil halfimbecile. The goon makes Simrit (Pooja) an offer - either a suhaag-raat with him after the wedding, or a suhaag raat with him and all his battle-stained cronies right away? Hmmm?

Is it any wonder that the pretty spunky Punjabi lass makes a run for the jungles rather than accept the goon’s marriage proposal. Predictably, Simrit runs into the banished army-man, our commandohero, who seems to have seen the collected Rambo series back-to-back at least eight to ten times.

The first time Vidyut plays the saviour at a bus stand, we know he means business. He is not just a one-man army, he is also the Indian army’s favourite bete noire Despite the heavy burden of playing protector to country and the leading lady, Vidyut’s fights manage to bring in a lot of warmth and some humour in their execution.

The narration is an unabashed homage to Sylvester Stallone’s jungle-survival saga. And yet, thanks to Vidyut’s powerful screen presence the combat between the commando-hero and the goons never slackens in pace. The physical combats, which are undoubtedly the crux of the theme, propel the plot forward in leaps of inspired action.

Happily for Vidyut, his opponents are not shown to be ineffectual jokers. The back-and-forth of fists and rhetoric are uniformly engaging. Though we know exactly where the protagonist’s one-man battle against his enemies is heading, we never lose interest in the plot.

The film is shot on some interesting locations. The backwaters of Punjab and the thick jungles serve as just the right ambience for the rugged actioner.

Vidyut takes care of the rest. His action definitely speaks louder than his words.

Sejal Shah’s cinematography and Ritesh

On the plus side, the original French film’s restaurateur’s realm is relocated into the bustling theatre world. And that is a cue for some eye-catching visuals and in-house humour.

Sippy’s eye for theatrical detail can’t match what R Balki did to the restaurant business in Cheeni Kum. But then, who’s comparing?

The cinematography is a refreshing synthesis of gritty realism and flights of colourful fantasy, quite like two worlds off and on stage that Ayushmann’s character grapples to come to terms with.

All said and dumb, the comic timing of the two lead actors does keep the narrative on track most of the way. Ayushmann and Kunal dig happily into their derivative roles of the saviour and the loser from the French film. The duo whips up a wicked humour in this comedy of errors filled with a reined-in blizzard of boyish bacchanalia and banter.

While you are mildly amused by their antics, you don’t come away overwhelmed by this comic outing on the downside of spontaneous hospitality.

Oh, Sippy had desecrated the RD Burman classic Dum Maro Dum in his last film. Here he goes at the Anand-Milind track Dhak dhak karne laga Frankly, it doesn’t make a difference. S UBHASH K J HA

Shah’s dialogues constantly add to Vidyut’s fist-power, imbuing his combat to the finish with some unexpected flourishes of serious socio-political comment towards the end when we are told we need to clean up our act if we want to protect the country from external threats.

It’s a one-man-show off all the way. Pooja shows flashes of talent when she isn’t busy brazenly aping Kareena Kapoor’s voluble-Punjabi act from Jab We Met Not her fault. If the hero is a silent seething ball of implosive fire, and the heroine is a talkative Punjabi girl who runs away from home to escape an unwanted marriage, ‘phir toh boss Jab We Met banta hai’.

To its credit, Commando creates a climate of clenched conflict for the hero to vent his voluminous talent as a martial artiste. Indeed, a star is born.

SUBHASH K JHA