The first trailer of John Abraham’s Attack brought back happy memories of Hollywood film Robocop and Universal Soldier. The parallels were hard to miss but to give credit where it is due, Attack is an ambitious effort. The idea of a super soldier who can operate beyond human limits is unique. This is a genre which has not been attempted previously in Indian cinema. Director Lakshya Raj Anand attempts a heady mix centered on the familiar brew of some Hollywood films, but manages to whip up only a dodgy screenplay with Attack.
The plot is very simple: Army officer Arjun Shergill is shattered when his girlfriend Aisha (Jacqueline Fernandez in an extended cameo) is killed in a terrorist attack at an airport. In the same attack to save other civilians, he gets injured and gets parlysed and wheelchair-bound. A few months later, Subramaniam (Prakash Raj), a high-ranking officer of the Indian Government, selects him for a new artificial-intelligence-led technology that can potentially turn him into a super soldier.
He undergoes radical cybernetic modifications with the help of artificial intelligence to enhance his biomechanisms in order to fight terrorism. Through incision surgery, Arjun is fitted with an AI-powered chip IRA like Siri or Alexa. The parliament is under attack and it is up to our super soldier to find humanity still tangled up amid the circuitry that’s so thoroughly clouding his brain functions, so he can clean up the mess.
There are times, while watching a film, you don’t get completely invested with what’s happening on screen but keep wondering about what would have gone behind setting up a certain sequence. So, in Attack, instead focusing on the efforts put in by India’s first super soldier Arjun Shergill (John Abraham) and scientist Dr Saba (Rakul Preet Singh) in nabbing the bad guy Gul (Elham Ehsas), I wanted to know how this terrorist managed to breach the security of the parliament so easily and reach there in the first place. That too not alone but with an army of bad men behind him. Wouldn’t the development of superpowers via the use of technology and artificial intelligence (AI) and how it unfolds on a person’s mind or the whole modus operandi or this infiltration have made an infinitely better story than the infantile pursuit that barely unfolds in just over two hours on screen?
Anand, along with co-writers Sumit Batheja and Vishal Kapoor, used up the entire first half to set-up the premise. The portions where they explain and transform Abraham into a super soldier with the use of artificial intelligence is captured really well. But the first hour tends to get tedious, giving rather little shape to the plot. Post-interval, the film picks pace as we are sucked into the world of our desi super soldier and his amazing abilities to fight, think and also execute something that is unimaginable.
My other problem with the film was drifting into a jingoistic mode. In a sequences=, Rajit Kapur who plays a Home Minister, quips “Aaj kal soldiers ka josh kuch zyada hi high chal raha hai,” taking a dig at Uri: The Surgical Strike’s famous dialogue, ‘How’s The Josh?’ In another sequence Prakash Raj talks about New India and how we have to move on from ‘muh tod jawaab’, to ‘muh todna.’
On the positive side, the action is simply amazing. Be it the opening action sequence, the first time when Abraham fights some local goons after turning into a superhuman or the climax action pieces, all of them have been choreographed really well. But despite the tautness and the crisp editing by Aarif Shaikh, the pacing seems a bit of an issue. The cinematography (Will Humphris, P.S. Vinod, Soumik Mukherjee) is also worth a mention especially the point-of-view shot in some action sequences which gives its viewers a video game feeling.
Abraham plays to his strengths. It is refreshing to see him not shouting some jingoistic lines, crushing people or lifting bikes. He is in great shape and is comfortable doing some amazing combat action sequences.
A film like this is frustrating, to be frank. The narrative is refreshingly written, brimming with unique ideas. But it is ironic that when it comes to execution, it falters on many levels. Despite its rousing moments, the film leaves you feeling unfulfilled. Attack does not deliver the level of non-stop, nail-biting excitement that one expects from a movie of this nature.
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