Udta Teer misses the mark

When an undercover Indian intelligence agent infiltrates into Pakistan through the visibility quotient of Aditya Dhar, the jingling sounds of money are still to subside. After V2 of the exposure of crime and the mafia in Islamabad, Aakash Kaushik decides to return the component. The spy world of Karan Johar has no Pathan, Tiger, Kabir or Sita reference (Alpha).

In a script stuck in a revolving door spies and infiltrators fly thick and fast across the Indian border. Resultantly it is time again to point at the ever-threatening enemy in the neighbourhood and revitalising the over energised patriotic adrenaline.

We have snatched from the cradle indoctrinated kids who grow up as terrorists. It all starts with post Sindhoor Operations when mujahid Azhar Maqsood (Mukul Dev in his last appearance) decides to attack India and perhaps return the Dhurandhar compliment. Azhar, in fact, is a second-generation terrorist who literally injects two Pakistanis straight into the Indian Defence forces. The ease with which the warring countries permeate and sneak into enemy territory makes you believe that the two countries are more engaged into espionage than warfare across borders.

Assisting Vikrant alias Bilal (Ayushmann Khurrana) is Dhruv alias Ashwaq Khan (Suhail Nayyar). The team is headed by M.D Burman (Rahul Bose) assisted by Holkar (Smita Thambe) and others. While Burman suspects a mole in the group, there are one too many of the variety including Srivastav (Brijendra Kala) and Tariq (Sandeep Anand). Heading operations in Pakistan is Niyazi (Ram Kapoor) with Gen. Mir (Gulshan Grover) giving his approval and throwing in the carrot and the stick.

What start or seems by design to be a comical farce gives into the temptation to hackneyed Pak bashing and thus yet another yawn filled addition in the archives with his hate the enemy theme. The problem with the script (a foursome reiterating that too many cooks spoil the broth) is it cannot make up a route of informed decision making. The terrorist in Azhar Maqsood is a caricature who cannot break a glass pane. His discourse to the aspiring set of terrorists is a farcical goof up leading to pointers on how Vikrant and Dhruv are triple and double crossing. It would have needed a different mindset (or even a time period) when Dhruv and Vikrant become men of the same kind. The script loses its way when it moves from comedy to a layered displacement of persons. The comic effort through contrived eases the viewing when Burman suffers from a serious injury and Vikrant amnesia.

Frankly Vikrant suffers confusion more than amnesia. He is affected in the chaos by the film maker Aakash Kaushik who suffers constantly from mood swings and accordingly gets over primary proponent of espionage shifting allegiance with the ease of the ayarams and gayarams. Also, in the midst of role changing and enemy bashing the film maker throws in the mandatory Punjabi film songs. You are not only left wondering whether our hero is a villain but you are taken further up the lane with the background song: Nayak Nahi Khal Nayak Hoon mien. The chaos not withstanding it is not the cast that is the villain but the writing crew who plays the villain. 

Understanding the farce and revolving in its premise are Mukul Dev and Rahul Bose. The one person who takes Sara Ali Khan seriously is her costume designer. She plays Yamini wife of Vikrant. While the entire support cast is a step ahead of being just adequate you can trust Ayushmann Khurrana to leave an impression. This however comes with the caveat: not knowing when Bilal when Vikrant. This happens to be the great undoing of the film. We must not forget that the high decibel levels have been set and defined by Aditya Dhar. Udta Teer is an arrow that flies but does not hit.

(L Ravichander)