Shershaah

It begins with a battle, which we gather soon enough is to capture one of the crucial bunkers high up on a border peak, which has been taken by Pakistani forces. Bullets are flying, soldiers are pointing and shooting and dodging enemy fire, grenades are being lobbed, flesh is being rent. By rights, we should have had our hearts in our mouths, but the adrenalin doesn’t pump enough. This pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the film, a flashback, showing us Vikram (Sidharth Malhotra) as a feisty boy, already clear about his intention to join the ‘fauj’. Everything after is by the numbers: first posting (our man feels it necessary to declare it out loud, when it’s amply clear he has just arrived on the base), encounters with terrorists in Jammu & Kashmir where he first starts to earn plaudits, pining for his lady love (Kiara Advani), the declaration of ‘war’, and the final summit.