Review of Yodha Thriller: An Intolerable, Scrappy Horror Film
Yodha fights a losing battle due to a misguided screenplay that keeps firing blanks. The main character, a de-rostered soldier from a task force that was disbanded, boards a commercial jet that is headed nowhere. His goal is to seek redemption and exact revenge.
That is what the co-director Sagar Ambre’s screenplay makes clear amidst the chaos caused by unsteady aircraft and malfunctioning hydraulics. Yodha is an unbearably rough thriller where everything is a confusing blur. It is best to leave solving the mystery to the brave ones who do not mind facing the incomprehensible.
The main character holds a smoke bomb as he emerges from a deep river early in the movie. The three colors of the flag are released by it. The guy is really skilled at maintaining a smoke-flare’s dryness in water. In the finale, he excels even more with a second smoke bomb that shoots tricolors and endures both an explosion and a full-fledged firestorm.
Regardless of your tolerance level or level of Sidharth Malhotra fandom, this pulpy action film is a rough ride that veers from one mistake to another.
Passenger planes are just toys in the hands of terrorists and commandos in Yodha. They have unrestricted access to the cargo hold from the cabin, which is simply not feasible, as any aviation expert will tell you.
The majority of Yodha, which was directed by Ambre and Pushkar Ojha, takes place in and around an airplane’s passenger cabin and the areas underneath it. The movie concludes with the premiers of India and Pakistan holding peace negotiations in Jinnah Hall, an Islamabad building. No prizes for guessing; a terror plot is afoot to scuttle the negotiations because war, as the antagonist thunders, is a business.
The protagonist commandeers an aircraft, and the passengers are caught in the middle of a yarn that suddenly becomes extremely turbulent and spirals out of control. The lowest points that Yodha and his flying machine can possibly reach are so absurd that all they can do is stare in shock and scream. The film revels in flagrantly flouting logic and common sense.
Yodha is meant to showcase the exploits of a very good soldier who has been treated unfairly by the system. On a hijacked flight, a VIP—a nuclear scientist, no less—is killed, and he is made the scapegoat. His unit, the elite Yodha Task Force, comprised of the finest soldiers from the Air Force, Navy, and Army, was abruptly disbanded and the men were moved to other posts without being given notice.
The son of a martyr, Arun Katyal (Sidharth Malhotra), will not acknowledge his own mistakes. He waits for his chance to avenge his lost glory. When the time comes, he mysteriously finds himself on a Delhi-London flight, leaving everyone on board in suspense. Yodha is a success if the goal is to confuse those who are witnessing the spectacle. The movie contains exactly zero coherent scenes.
A short preamble shows the body of a fallen soldier being brought home in a wooden casket. The soldier is Surender Katyal (Ronit Roy in a cameo). Cut to the Indo-Bangladeshi border, where Arun Katyal summarily eliminates a group of evil men who could be terrorists, smugglers, or infiltrators—you never know.
This opening scene is clearly intended to set the tone for Arun Katyal’s methods; warnings or negotiations are not acceptable to him before he pulls the trigger. Indeed, he does not wait for orders and does not spare any victims. He gets into trouble because of his impatience.
The careless screenplay falls short in explaining to the audience why the young man is constantly spoiling for a skirmish where a little prodding could be sufficient, let alone providing any kind of convincing backdrop for the tactics the hero uses.
For a patriot, everything is entirely personal. Because his father gave his life to defend the country, he is a soldier. His wife, Priyamvada Katyal (Raashii Khanna), is the senior bureaucrat who steps down against him following a disastrous mission. Because he disregarded the chain of command, he is penalized. Even worse, Priyamvada files for divorce, prioritizing her country over herself.
Arun’s coworker and family friend Tanuj Virwani (playing Khan, the token good Muslim that no thriller that promotes patriotism could exist without) makes a fruitless attempt to dissuade the couple from making their choice.
Arun Katyal’s life and career are in ruins because he has a grudge against a terrorist who forced him off a plane a few years ago and into a black hole that still haunts him. Again, this is all based on fragments of information that the script throws at us.
When the plane is being hijacked, Disha Patani, the head purser, poses like a runway model until she is ready to show her true colors and get involved in the action. The hero is caught off guard by the plans of the first officer in the cockpit as well. The plane loses altitude and veers off course, but not before there are multiple full-on brawls in the cargo hold, the restroom, and the aisle.
Additionally, an intern who says she has 200 hours of flying experience is on board and is compelled to take over control of the aircraft when the situation gets out of hand. Never attempt to solve a two-for-two puzzle because Yodha’s stacking does not add up.
Expecting Sidharth Malhotra to rescue this mess from the gutter is asking for too much. Yodha is in a mess, but the actor can not get out of it. He jumps around, runs, throws punches, fires in all directions, and holds his ground as chaos breaks out around him—most of it his own making.
The other actors in the cast merely perform their parts. Nothing is revealed by their faces. Is this the brave one’s stoicism? No, it is an indication that they are as ignorant as the audience.
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