Review: Dharmendra's Swan Song Ikkis Is Not Average Hindi War Film

Not the sort of Bollywood war movie that goes all guns blazing and tom-tomming the virtues of battlefield bellicosity, Ikkis conserves its firepower and spreads it out judiciously over its two-and-a-half-hour runtime.

The strategy, sustained all the way through, serves Sriram Raghavan's film, which is a marked departure from his neo-noir thrillers, well. It hits its intended targets more often than it misses.

Impeccably crafted and solidly acted, Ikkis celebrates the youthful courage of a soldier of the 17th Poona Horse Regiment who laid down his life and changed the course of the 1971 India-Pakistan war even as it emphatically underscores the humongous human and historical cost of military conflict, something that Hindi films of this era are loath to do.

Dharmendra's final screen appearance enormously enriches an emotionally engaging, if not viscerally rousing, film that pivots around a pair of key performances from lead actor Agastya Nanda and Jaideep Ahlawat.

The former is impressively steady as a boy who goes to war no sooner than he completes his defence academy training. The latter lends balance-altering gravitas to the film.

Nanda confidently slips into the skin of 21-year-old Second Lieutenant Arun Khetarpal, the youngest-ever Param Vir Chakra recipient. Ahlawat, a consummate scene-stealer, essays the role of a Pakistan Army Brigadier who plays host to the Indian war hero's father when the latter travels to Lahore for a college reunion three decades after losing his son.

The film alternates between two periods – 1971 and 2001 – as it pieces together Second Lieutenant Khetarpal through the recollections of his grieving but proud father and a Pakistani soldier-turned-cricket selector who has a portrait of Sachin Tendulkar on a wall of his living room and declares that the exploits of 1971 Indian was hero is worthy of being emulated by Pakistanis, too.

Ikkis, Maddock Films' second war movie of the year, provides a peacenik's view of cross-border conflict in a nation where the current climate is barely conducive to a dispassionate delineation of military and its ever-lasting repercussions.

The male protagonist's romantic interest, Kiran Kochar (debutante Simar Bhatia), is a bibliophile. The boy first meets her outside a movie theatre exhibiting Irma La Douce and then at Manney's Book Store, a Pune landmark that no longer exists.

The fact that Kiran reads a lot facilitates a reference to Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, a hard-nosed novel that weighs the pros and cons of war without being swayed by emotion and established notions of valour.

Ikkis does pretty much the same. Eschewing crude jingoism and over-the-top chest-thumping, it plays with memories of bygone times and lost roots sullied by forced displacement and bloodshed. The character of Brigadier Madan Lal Khetrapal (Dharmendra, clearly infirm but marvellously spirited), who pines to return to the city of his birth from which he and his family were torn away, repeatedly alludes to history's depredations.

During his Lahore sojourn in 2001, the Indian brigadier, now 80, is escorted to Sargodha (where he was born and raised) by Brigadier Jaan Mohammed Nisar with two ISI agents tailing them all the way. The outing culminates in a scene that defines the essence of the film.

An ex-Pakistani soldier (Deepak Dobriyal in a cameo) confronts the old man and wants him thrown out immediately. The agitated man lost a leg in war and blames all Indians for his plight. I lost a son, Brigadier Khetarpal replies. The two, both brave soldiers who have paid a price, embrace.

Ikkis does not deny that war is often necessary but it never abandons its assertion that military combat and the death and destruction it causes diminishes us all as humans and as people from lands separated by boundaries.

Right up front, in pre-credits title cards, the film acknowledges the strategic genius of Lieutenant General Hanut Singh Rathore (played here by Rahul Dev) and the supreme sacrifice of four of Second Lt Khetarpal's soldiers, included a especially hardy soul portrayed by Sikandar Kher.

It is not often these days that we watch a Hindi film that does not turn a regiment's war cry (“Ran Vir Jai Sada” in this case) into a rasping, blood-curdling call to murderous action. It is presented simply as a means of keeping the warriors focussed on their goal.

When it ends, the film comes full circle but clearly not of its own volition. The final credits are followed by a discordant disclaimer that asserts that the tale of a benign, fair-minded Pakistani soldier is at best stuff of legend and that the nation he represents is never to be trusted.

In reality, what that statement implies may not be off the mark at all, but it militates against the spirit in which this film, written by Arijit Biswas, Pooja Ladha Surti and Raghavan himself, has been made.

Witness a brief moment at the heart of the film that serves to sum up the feelings of a proud retired Army man who sent a young son to the battlefield never to ever see him alive again.

Brigadier Khetarpal wonders why his son defied an order from a senior to retreat to safety. He was fighting an enemy, Brigadier Nisar replies. The ageing Indian asks: Dushman? Kaun dushman? (Enemy? Enemy, who?) He and the film radiate humanism.

On the acting front, Ahlawat dominates but both Nanda in his sophomore outing and Dharmendra in his swan song leave a deep imprint. Debutante Simar Bhatia holds her own in a role that has depth, if not length.

Special mentions have to be made of Ekavali Khanna and filmmaker-photographer Avani Rai, playing Brigadier Nisar's wife and daughter respectively.

Ikkis will most definitely not command anything like the windfall that Dhurandhar has seen, but it is reassuring that Mumbai has not been emptied of filmmakers who will not swim with the tide and will dare to stick to their guns (the sort that fire shots of sanity) no matter what.

For that, and for much else, go out and watch Ikkis. It isn't your average Hindi war film.