When in doubt, suppose about the country – that is the mantra that Tejas, written and directed by means of Sarvesh Mewara and produced by means of Ronnie Screwvala’s RSVP Movies, harps upon. This is a movie that religiously adheres to that axiom. It is usually in doubt and it in no way lets the state slip out of its thoughts.
But attempt as tough as it may, Tejas comes a entire cropper – it is a dead-on-arrival cinematic consignment that does no justice at all to the nation, the Air Force or the medium. It is an insufferably bland thriller that believes that peddling patriotism can assist it paper over its pockmarks.
Toplined with the aid of a definitely out of her depth Kangana Ranaut in the function of an Indian Air Force pilot who flourishes on hazardous missions and empty platitudes, Tejas is a precariously low-flying car that by no means gathers any velocity. It lurches from one crashlanding to another.
It have to have taken some doing for the makers to turn an aviation actioner into such a stilted, insipid affair. The excruciatingly vacuous writing – the strains that the characters spout are proper out of a how-real-people-should-not-speak handbook, is aggravated manifold by means of the terribly sloppy performing all around.
Ranaut’s eponymous persona is a ‘rockstar’ in the guise of a fighter pilot who flies the single-engine mild fight plane that shares her name. Well, well, Tejas piloting a Tejas in a mission known as Tejas in a movie titled Tejas – how dramatic!
The movie has a scene in which the attraction of a popstar (Varun Mitra, who suggests up for a bit, is projected as the heroine’s romantic activity and then is viewed no extra due to the fact the female he desires to woo has a long way extra vital matters on her mind) is eclipsed by using the air of mystery that surrounds Wing Commander Tejas Gill (Ranaut). She is mobbed through autograph-hunting ladies who seem proper thru the preening crooner.
That, in a metafictional sense, is the sort of movie Tejas is. Nobody is allowed to steal the heroine’s thunder here. This is a Kangana Ranaut exhibit all the way and that is the film’s largest undoing. There isn’t always a single fleeting second – forget about an complete sequence – in Tejas in which the lead performer is convincing.
Ranaut used to be infinitely higher as Rani Lakshmibai (in Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi) than she is as an intrepid Air Force pilot. That, as is obvious, is pronouncing a lot. The persona she plays, all spunk and no substance, has a single dimension. She is aware of no doubts.
From her days in the Air Force academy to the volatile mission she undertakes in order to store an Indian undercover agent held hostage in Mir Ali city in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Tejas Gill is a fount of special Genius and unshakeable confidence. So, the personality has no arc to talk of. She starts the place she ends.
Tejas Gill’s supportive mother and father pop up in a few scenes however the two-hour movie has no house for the story of the protagonist’s developing up years. This ain’t no Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl. All that Tejas lets on is that the female made up her thinking about turning into a fighter pilot when Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee named India’s fighter plane Tejas.
The female-led movie touches upon the gender theme all right, however solely cursorily. The guys take a backseat as two ladies lead the cost in the climactic sequences. That is the factor that the movie tries to make with all its may however muffs up its lines.
Tejas plunges straight into a sortie that Tejas makes in the corporation of Afiya (Anshul Chauhan, the solely member of the solid who comes somewhere making an impression) to rescue an Air Force officer whose airplane has crashed in the sea and his physique has washed up on a prohibited island inhabited by way of the covered Sentinelese tribe.
Tejas refuses to again off notwithstanding orders from higher-ups and pulls off a daring rescue act, shaking off an assault with the aid of the tribals in the process. She is struck by means of arrows. But that is no extra than a expert hazard that is shrugged off except a good deal ado.
For their daring and selfless effort, she and Afiya – the title would possibly ring a bell however her non secular identification is fiercely guarded – face an inner inquiry. But considering that it is Kangana Ranaut who is in the line of fire, you comprehend that she is going to sail via unscathed.
Yes, that is the stage at which Tejas flies. Such are the flights of fancy that the exasperatingly listless movie indulges in that barely 30 minutes in, it turns into a bit of a slog that is difficult to take a seat through. Somebody says, Hum uddte uddte jaayenge, desh ke kaam aayenge. The protagonist takes that to heart. There is no stopping her from right here on.
As Tejas sits at the controls of her first solo trial sortie, the trainer asks her what she can see. The runway, she replies. Look harder, the man says. The woman pauses and pipes up: I can see the street that will assist me serve the nation. Spot on! She is geared up for greater things.
The film, unfortunately, by no means is. It crams in the whole lot that you would anticipate from a drama of this nature. In 2008 Mumbai, terrorists interrupt a satisfied household dinner. A shrieking, smirking mastermind harboured by means of Pakistan wishes to make sure the barbadi of Hindustan.
Also appear out for a ferocious executioner nicknamed Sar Qalam (meaning the act of decapitation) due to the fact of his talent at slitting the throats of hostages. But now not to worry, the enemy troopers that the protagonist has to deal with are a bunch of bumbling, easy-to-hoodwink men.
And for properly measure, there is a spanking new temple that faces the risk of an assault from three jihadists who sneak in to sabotage the inauguration of the grand edifice.
Logic is misplaced in the deafening din of the fight aircraft. Tejas is a movie that flies into hard climate from the phrase go and by no means manages to locate a way out of it. An air fight thriller has in no way been so frustratingly airy-fairy.