Never Ending Movie Carnival
Never Ending Movie Carnival
Ranneeti : Balakot & Beyond web series review: Absorbing
What: ‘Ranneti : Balakot & Beyound’ – the Jimmy Shergill, Lara Dutta and Ashutosh Rana starrer is an absorbing binge watch on the war with arms and narratives.
Ranneeti: Balakot & Beyond synopsis
A camphor sniffing Raw officer Kashyap Sinha (Jimmy Shergill) is on a punishment post due to an eight-year-old failure of a mission in Serbia. Kashyap who has lost his sense of taste due to this failure gets a sense of hope when his senior colleague Gurtek Sodhi (Suneel Sinha), informs Sinha about the capturing of Hammad Wadera (Mohammad Sarwar Mir), a terrorist he had encountered in his eight-year-old Serbia mission. Kashyap in his zest to know the betrayer during his Serbia mission goes against the protocols and interrogates Wadera. Wadera does not discloses the name of the betrayer but informs about an upcoming calamity – A big attack on India. Kashyap rushes to the National Security Advisor of India, Mr Madhusudan Dutta (Ashish Vidyarthi) and informs him about the attack. Dutta does not believe him and on coming to know that Kashyap has violated security norms and interrogated Vadera, demands his resignation.
The very next day the Pulwama attack happens and Kashyap is in charge of the team that retaliates and conducts that famous Balakot Air Strike, next follows a series of attacks and counter attacks from India and Pakistan mostly off the field to confirm their agenda with clams and counter claims.
There have been many movies, series based on the Pulwama attacks and the great Indian retaliation – Balakot Air Strike but this one focuses on the prevailing war of narration around the globe.
The term war of narration was heard a lot in Vivek Agnihotri’s ‘The Kashmir Files’, but here the focus is not on history its about the perception created with the help of media.
A befitting line said by the Lara Dutta’s character Manisha – the communication head from the Ministry which goes like “Cheekh kar bataye hue sach se zyada bharosa kaan mein kahe hue jhooth par hota hai .
‘Ranneeti : Balakot and Beyond’ after a slow start gets its momentum when India plans the retaliation and we see other characters apart from Jimmy Shergill like Ashutosh Rana as the evil Raqib from Pakistan.
Director Santosh Singh story telling is layered, the writers Maitrey Bajpai, Sanjay Chopra, Aniruddha Guha, Ramiz Ilham Khan, Sudeep Nigam and Vasim Kapadia have commented with sly humor – the Bollywood movie screening scene for example
But at times they do goof up like the Indian PM calling the Pak PM. The web series is fictional based on real incidents but you cannot go overboard in your commercial push and pull.
The aerial action is outstanding, Siddharth Anand the director who later on blamed the audience for the debacle of his dud Fighter starring Deepika Padokone and Hrithik Roshan can watch this series and unlearn.
The scenes where India and Pakistan make and break perceptions is another major highlight.
Performance
Jimmy Sheirgill is outstanding as Kashyap Sinha.
Ashutosh Rana as Raqib is perfect in a tailor-made role.
Ashish Vidyarthi as Dutta is wonderful.
Lara Dutta shines beautifully as the Communications Officer Manisha.
Prasanna as the Commander modelled on Group Captain Abhinandan Varthaman is fabulous.
Good support comes from Suneel Sinha, Aakanksha Singh, Sikandar Kharbanda, Satyajeet Dubey etc.
Ranneeti : Balakot and Beyond – final words
‘Ranneeti : Balakot and Beyond’ is an absorbing binge watch on the Pulwama, Balalkot and what happened after that. The series gets an edge on its focus on the war of narratives which is very filmy but does communicates with the right message.
‘Ranneeti : Balakot and Beyond’ is streaming on Jio Cinema from 25th April 2024.
A child born from life & fed by cinema. A filmi keeda from child & a film journalist for the last fifteen years. a father, seeker, foodie who loves crooning bollywood melodies twitter.com/cineblues More By vishal verma