‘IB 71’ movie review: Vidyut Jammwal fails to charge up this ham-fisted exercise

Vidyut Jammwal in the teaser of ‘IB 71’

One of the side effects of the current political scenario is that we are being bombarded with a series of films that trace the success stories of Indian intelligence agencies against Pakistan. While most of these spy thrillers push the ‘nationalist’ agenda, they also leave us with the feeling that our security apparatus was in firm hands even before 2014. It perhaps leaves the filmmakers in a quandary: what to pick and what to ignore while getting ‘inspired’ by real events.

So, one had hardly recovered from the mediocrity of Bell Bottom and Mission Majnu that writer-director Sankalp Reddy decides to take us on yet another covert operation designed to thwart the evil designs of the neighbour.

Inspired by the January 1971 hijack of a Fokker F27 plane, named Ganga, by Kashmiri extremists, the film tries to sell us the Pakistani theory that the hijack was the handiwork of the Indian intelligence agencies so that they could find a reason to block the Indian air space for Pakistani military’s movement towards the then East Pakistan in the run-up to the December 1971 war that led to the birth of Bangladesh. In terms of the story, the writers have done a decent job of blending the available information with conjectures and possibilities but the screenplay and execution limit the flight of imagination.

No story about the 1971 war is complete without nodding to the political will of Indira Gandhi but here she is conspicuous by her absence. The makers make sure that Dalip Tahil comes across as Zulfikar Ali Bhutto but make no such attempt to cast a senior actor who looks like Jagjivan Ram, the then Defence Minister.

It follows the formula where there is one daredevil officer (here we have Vidyut Jammwal as agent Dev) whom we can see from a distance but somehow the floundering opponent fails to notice his movements. For a spy thriller, the build-up drags for a long time before it presses the right buttons. The characterisations are contrived and the performances are a little too dramatic for a spy thriller. Injected with dollops of nervous energy, it seems actors are dressed up for a fancy dress show. With just one chase sequence, Vidyut hardly gets a chance to charge up the scenario. Maybe the action hero is trying something different but for now he is oscillating between no acting and overacting. Even a seasoned actor like Anupam Kher, who is expected to lend weight to the proceedings, looks out of touch as Awasthi, the head of the Indian intelligence apparatus. Young Kashmiri extremists (played by Vishal Jethwa and Faizan Khan) who hijack the plane come across as caricatures. If the idea was to make them come across as foolhardy, it doesn’t work.

In film after film, the versatile Ashwath Bhatt is getting typecast as a cunning Pakistani. Here again he underplays the ISI boss with predictable distinction but is unfortunately caught in a situation where exaggeration seems to be a virtue.

Like the rickety Ganga, IB 71 takes a long time to take off and picks up pace only in the last half-hour. But by then one had given up on this ham-handed exercise.

IB 71 is currently running in theatres.