Major Review

Major is in a perennial state of exaggeration.
The sighs, the misty eyes, the mushy speeches, its details are invested in highlighting all things in-your-face, observes Sukanya Verma.

There's no greater disservice to a real-life hero than to hyperbolise his bravado to a point it starts to look unnatural.

A constant feeling of undermining a heart-breaking reality betrays Director Sashi Kiran Tikka's bilingual biopic, shot in Telugu and Hindi simultaneously, where he escalates Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan's martyrdom for sentiment and spectacle.

In its very first shot, an armed Black Cat commando is standing in a room caught on fire and explosives.

Blood is oozing out of his flesh in slow motion.

But there's more to him than the courage he displayed on the days Mumbai was brought to a standstill, interrupts a voiceover and Major rolls out a series of flashbacks chronicling his journey from child to cadet to commando.

Following a trajectory similar to Shershaah, which told the big screen story of Kargil hero Captain Vikram Batra's valour, Major is about a young, dynamic National Security Guard commando making the ultimate sacrifice while saving lives during the deadly 26/11 terror attacks on Mumbai.

Like Shershaah, it focuses on the handsome Unnikrishnan's charms, childhood, youth, family, flirtations and rise in ranks within the army until one fateful day, where he willingly throws himself into the line of fire and rescues civilian lives from sure shot death.

Through its back and forth chronology, penned by leading man Adivi Sesh (Hindi speaking audience may remember him as Bhallaldeva's decapitated son in S S Rajamouli's Baahubali), Major quickly establishes Unnikrishnan as a deeply compassionate soul high on patriotic zeal and altruistic fervour, attributes that his simple parents (a reliably melodramatic Prakash Raj and Revathy) cannot appreciate.

Demonstrations of generosity towards a convict and impulses to interfere in scenes of domestic violence ensue in a cloying celebration of virtue and cliché.

Whenever the need to make a scene look dramatic, romantic or tragic arises, it rains on cue.

As always there's that one lucky charm whose presence or unavailability on the hero will have a life or death impact.

Retro elements like popular movies and songs of that period, old currency, advertising and packaging do their bit.

And then there's the perpetual offender.

Everyone talks in a premonitory tone and sports a worried frown like they are already aware of Unnikrishnan's fate. Like a prematurely moping mother inquires, 'Beta, tujhe kuch nahi hoga?'

Director Tikka's tendency to overstate every emotion and throw in bombastic background score ensures Major is in a perennial state of exaggeration. The sighs, the misty eyes, the mushy speeches, its details are invested in highlighting all things in-your-face.

Like most Indian biopics, Major repeats the same blunder -- the hagiographic syndrome.

When Unnikrishnan joins the army, his training shows no signs of a learning curve.

There's no physical or psychological transformation, he's always fit, always achieving, always an all-star.

No wonder a run-of-the-mill romance between Unnikrishnan and Neha, his childhood sweetheart and future wife actually comes as a relief from the pompous excesses.

Neha (Saiee Manjrekar) is a classic case of poor little rich girl. Ignored by her moneybags dad and socialite mum, Neha finds an anchor in Unnikrishnan.

But when their relationship becomes official, so does her disenchantment.

In a sloppily treated turnaround, their marriage crushes under the weight of his patriotism.

What does it mean to be a soldier, Unnikrishnan wonders aloud on several occasions.

According to Major, it's playing daredevil-daredevil.

In his hurried pursuit of country-first sentiments, Sikka forsakes the potential for drawing a portrait or thriller.

Once the scene shifts to the bloodbath at the Taj Mahal hotel following the invasion of terrorists, Major slips into classic action movie mode sans the urgency, chaos and panic that makes its true event premise such a harrowing memory in Mumbai's history.

Unlike Hotel Mumbai, which recreated a fairly distressing atmosphere of the attack, Major's haphazard gaze is only concerned with Unnikrishnan's entry and gallantry as he singularly takes down the kohl-eyed baddies and beats them up fully filmi style one on one, threats et al.

Barring one guest (a serviceable Sobhita Dhulipala in a tiny role) and her risky efforts to save a kid for some vaguely implied guilt haunting her, neither the iconic hotel, or its brave employees or scared-to-death guests or even Unnikrishnan's colleagues receive any screen time or significance.

The spotlight is always on the Ashok Chakra-awarded hero, never the calamitous events of the day or the perpetrators he fought tooth and nail.

What Major gets right is an engaging momentum, it moves at a swift pace while the actors charge its overblown proceedings with an integrity befitting its extraordinary martyr.

Adivi Sesh's gobs of charisma and physical likeness to Unnikrishnan conveys a picture of likeability and gung-ho spirit.

He would fare even better under a less hysteric approach as evident in the breezy interactions between him and the lovely Saiee Manjrekar. It's the more complex stage of their estranged ties that Major has little clue about.

It is said the last words uttered by him at the peak of Operation Black Tornado were, 'Do not come up, I will handle them.'

Major's biggest drawback is it misconstrues a Braveheart's safeguarding tone for the sound of conceit.