Neeraj Pandey's Aiyaary has lots of important names – Major Jai Bakshi (Sidharth Malhotra), Colonel Abhay Singh (Manoj Bajpayee), Retd Lt General Gurinder Singh, General Pratap Malik (Vikram Gokhale), Brigadier K Srinivas (Rajesh Tailang) and ex-army Mukesh Kapoor (Adil Hussain).
There is a lot of posturing that serves to make viewers think the film is headed somewhere interesting. Words like "Two months later" and "Four days ago" flash on the screen, but it is difficult to keep up with the plot as the screenplay twists itself up in knots that are almost impossible to untangle.
Aiyaary probably had noble intentions. The film follows the uniformed men of our country and exposes the dubious intentions of some of them. There’s mentions of corruption, shoddy arms deals, misuse of funds meant for army widows and some glimpses of spycraft – complete with bugged rooms and phones – but it's difficult to decipher what the film wants to achieve .
Characters bellow dialogues like "the b*stard has gone rogue" and "saala gaddaar nikla" at regular intervals. We know that a secret unit was formed by the Army general to gather intelligence data and eliminate enemies via covert operations . Manoj Bajpayee plays the head of the secret unit, while Siddharth Malhotra plays his protégé. But midway, the protégé falls in love, hearns to hack and switches his loyalties.
Now, why would a “desh bhakt” do that? This is the question we’re left grappling with. It doesn’t help that Siddharth Malhotra has been cast in the role – his face is almost always blank, and his expressions seldom give away his intentions, making this guessing game a cumbersome one.
Manoj Bajpayee has hardly any challenges to battle in this attempt at a plot, and we’re left to fend for ourselves, as are the other actors. Adil Hussain, Anupam Kher and Naseeruddin Shah completely wasted here as they are left to their own devices to mumble some ineffective dialogues and pace up and down their rooms in order to look busy. The women have it worse. Rakul Preet Singh and Pooja Chopra have been ignored for the most.
Aiyaary fails to pack a punch, primarily because of its weak script. It isn't the film that we deserve or had hoped for. Watch it at your own peril.
1.5 Quints out of 5!
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