The first trailer of John Abraham’s Attack brought back happy memories of Hollywood films Robocop and Universal Soldier. The parallels were hard to miss but to give it credit where it is due, the attack is an ambitious effort. The idea of a super soldier who can operate beyond human limits is unique. This is a genre that has not been tried before in Indian cinema. Director Lakshya Raj Anand attempts a heady concoction centered on the familiar brew of some Hollywood films, but manages to craft only a shoddy screenplay with Attack.
The plot is very simple: Army officer Arjun Shergill is shattered when his girlfriend Ayesha (Jacqueline Fernandez in an extended cameo) is killed in a terrorist attack at an airport. In the same attack to save other civilians, he is injured and paralyzed and wheelchair bound. A few months later, Subramaniam (Prakash Raj), a high-ranking Indian government official, selects him for a new artificial-intelligence-based technology that could potentially turn him into a super soldier.
He undergoes radical cybernetic modifications with the help of artificial intelligence to enhance his biomechanism to fight terrorism. Through incision surgery, Arjun is equipped with AI-powered Chip Ira like Siri or Alexa. Parliament is under attack and it’s up to our super soldier to find humanity still entangled among the circuitry that envelops his brain functions so well he can clean up the mess.
Many a times, while watching a movie, you are not completely invested with what is happening on the screen, but keep wondering what would have been behind setting up a certain sequence. So, in Attack, instead of focusing on the efforts by India’s first super soldier Arjun Shergill (John Abraham) and scientist Dr. Saba (Rakul Preet Singh) to capture the bad guy Gul (Elham Ehsaas), I wanted to know how it was. How is the terrorist so easily managed to breach the security of Parliament and reach there. He is also not alone, but behind him is an army of miscreants. Whether the development of superpowers through the use of technology and artificial intelligence (AI) and how it manifests on a person’s mind or entire modality or did this intrusion create an infinitely better story than the discovery of the infant Which barely comes out in no time two hours on screen?
Anand, along with co-writers Sumit Batheja and Vishal Kapoor, used the entire first part to set up the complex. The parts that explain and transform Abraham into a super soldier using artificial intelligence are captured really well. But the first hour gets tiring, which gives little shape to the plot. Post-interval, the film picks up pace as we are sucked into the world of our desi super soldier and his amazing ability to fight, think and do something that is unimaginable.
My other problem with the film was drifting into a linguistic mode. In a sequence =, Rajit Kapoor, who plays the role of a Home Minister, the famous dialogue from Uri: The Surgical Strike, ‘How’s the Josh? In another sequence, Prakash Raj talks about New India and how we have to move from ‘Muh Tod Jawab’ to ‘Muh Todna’.
On the positive side, the action is simply amazing. Be it the opening action sequence, the first time Abraham fights some local goons after turning into a superhuman or a climax action piece, all of them are choreographed really well. But despite the sturdy and crunchy editing by Arif Shaikh, the pacing remains a problem. The cinematography (Will Humphreys, PS Vinod, Soumik Mukherjee) is also notable, especially the point-of-view shots in some of the action sequences, which give the audience the feel of a video game.
Abraham plays to his strength. It’s refreshing to see him not shouting some jingostick line, crushing people or picking up a bike. He is in great form and is comfortable doing some amazing combat action sequences.
A movie like this is disappointing, to be frank. The story is freshly written full of unique ideas. But the irony is that when it comes to hanging, it falters on several levels. Despite its exhilarating moments, the film leaves you feeling incomplete. Attack doesn’t deliver the level of non-stop, nail-biting excitement one would expect from a film of this nature.
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