Rating: *** ½
How wonderful to see the ‘other’ side as human beings, warm hospitable and as perplexed by the destructions at the border as all of us.
Sriram Raghavan’s effulgent film asks a vital question without vocalizing it: is war really necessary? If it isn’t , then why does a dedicated soldier like Arun Khetarpal have to die at 21? His bright empathetic eyes and boyish charm follow us out of the theatre like a ghost that won’t go away until we cease fire permanently.
Ikkis is a peace film cloaked as a war film. Its young 21-year old hero is pushed into the battle tank(very authentic , these tank scenes) even as he probably wants to only do what all 21-year old guys want to: date his girlfriend(debutante Simran Bhatia) have fun with his pals, watch the latest films….
But none of that. Co-writers Arijit Biswas,Sriram Raghavan and Pooja Ladha Surti repose their faith in the drama of the battle without using war tropes: yes, the young hero does go into flossy flashbacks about his girl while at the battlefront, and yes, the soldiers dance and sing around the fire.
But at heart, Ikkis is the story of a bereaved father who after so many years of his soldier-son’s death is still wondering why his son had to die.As Madan Khetarpal , Dharmendra is a masterstroke of casting . He is old frail and staring at mortality. The line between the character and the actor gets blurred probably by the tears in our eyes.
Jaideep Ahlawat plays Nissar with a muted grace,he is a high-ranking soldier in the Pakistani army who plays Madan Khetarpal’s host in Lahore when Khetarpal comes visiting to see the spot where his son died, and also to visit his ancestral village where he is received like a royal guest.
This is probably just a fantasy…you know, a veteran Indian soldier whose son was killed by the enemy being received by the enemy country with open arms. In fact an unintentionally comic disclaimer at the end of the film warns us that the Pakistanis are not to be trusted.
Still, there is the film’s unquestionable humanism, punctuated by a hurriedly scripted sequence where a hate-filled one-legged Pakistani soldier(played by the redoubtable Deepak Dobriyal) is reduced to a sobbing repentant reformed soul in seconds.
There is strong scent of fantasy in Sriram Raghavan’s love letter to Pakistan. Compounding the fuzzy fumes of benevolence is the rather weak impact of the battle scenes. The soldiers seem so much more human when they are off-front. Or maybe that’s what director aims to do.He humanizes the war saga and refuses to demonize the enemies.
At the end, Ikkis leaves a lingering feeling of hope against the futility of war. Some quietly effective performances, especially Jaideep Ahlawat as a soldier torn between loyalty and compassion, elevate the less inspired passages of the storytelling.
As for Agastya Nanda,he has the spark.
