There is no easy way to say this. Bhuj: The Pride of India is basically slow death by loud noise. Every character that appears, screams and leaves. The background score wrestles with the sound of machine guns and fighter planes, Ajay Devgn and others then use their lung power to be heard over the obnoxious music bed and we can't even hear ourselves think numbed as we are by the assault.
Bhuj takes the very extraordinary true story of how IAF squadron leader Vijay Karnik, then incharge of the Bhuj airport ensured the airstrip is repaired in time with the help of 300 local women, which proved to be of huge strategic advantage to India during the 1971 Indo-Pak war. Even an essay on this incident by a school kid would have gripped us more than this almost 2-hour-long film that makes a mockery of everything.
When a doctor suggests that Vijay Karnik must get his x-ray done and rest, he storms out in slow motion – “Everything will happen after I win the war,” he bellows. Then slow-mos a little more. Ajay Devgn is the only one given the courtesy of elaborate slow-mo shots to drive home the point that he is the one who does everything.
Diffuse bombs, help planes land on his truck and scream a badly written manipulative speech that rhymes no less so the local village women rally around him. “Meri choti behna, usse kehna ki mujhe uska tohfa yaad hai lekin ek ajeeb ittefak ho gaya; Rakhi se pehle bhai raakh ho gaya”. Good lord!
The general import of every scene is that India and Indians are the best, Pakistan and Pakistanis the worst. Simple. There is no room for any nuance or subtlety because everything has been taken over by jingoism and inexplicable voiceovers by Devgn stating exactly what is being shown as if the makers don’t even trust us with the bare minimum. General Yayah Khan is depicted as a growling old man who says he had learnt back in 1947, the only way to achieve new heights was over piles of dead bodies. Anything less would only mean downfall. Indian soldiers are good because one fell in love with a “Muslim viklaang ladki” (yes that what they say), and the other wants to take his mother to a doctor. The similarity is that officers on both sides of the border shout and talk like cardboard cutouts that can grunt.
Sonakshi Sinha is made to play a brave Gujarati woman who nonchalantly kills a leopard to save her pet “gaiyya.” Given all our nationalism these days is entrusted on only certain chosen animals, this act is considered one of supreme ethical value. Nora Fatehi gets dialogues and some daredevilry to showcase. Pranitha Subhash mostly stares wide-eyed.
The special effects, close-ups of bullets as they ricochet off, planes hovering above are embarrassingly amateurish. Actors like Sharad Kelkar and Sanjay Dutt are reduced to caricatures and Ammy Virk’s Hindi is so strongly laced with a Punjabi accent that it is impossible to understand what he is saying.
Bhuj takes an inspiring story and tries every possible trick in the book to make it unwatchable.
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