Last week, I saw Tango Charlie and I must admit that I had no expectations from it. I was just hoping to see something barely better than what bollywood usually produces. To my surprise, I liked the movie and I think that it is a good movie.
The Story:
In a nutshell, Tango Charlie is the story of Tarun Chauhan (Bobby Deol), a BSF Jawan and his experiences in fighting enemies on either side of the border in various parts of India. It is the story of a simple and innocent person who confronts death in most brutal circumstances when serving the country, the conflicts in his mind, his bonding with Mohammad Ali (Ajay Devgan) and how he accomplishes his mission.
The Treatment:
The treatment of the story is very interesting. Instead of have a sequential and coherent story, the director has chosen to tell the story in a episodic fashion. The story telling is in the form of narration of sequential events in the life of Tango Charlie (code name for Tarun Chauhan).
The movie starts with Sanjay Dutt and Suniel Shetty flying in a chopper near Kargil where they find the bodies of many dead enemy soldiers and a barely alive Indian Soldier (Tarun), who they rescue. They find a dairy in his belongings and on the way to the nearest base, Suniel reads the dairy to Sanjay Dutt.
1st Event: Tarun’s assignment in Manipur where he meets Ali. They lose their entire battalion but manage to defeat the insurgents.
2nd Event: Tarun returns to his village and falls in love with Laachi (Tanisha).
3rd Event: Tarun’s assignment with Ali in Andhra Pradesh where they fight Naxalites
4th Event: Assignment in Gujarat to control civilians during the Hindu-Muslim riots
5th Event: Ali’s flashback - His mission to provide security to a zamindar family in West bengal (?) for their daughter’s wedding and his love story with the Zameedar’s daughter.
6th Event: Tarun Chauhan gets engaged to Laachi
7th Event (Finale): Tarun and Ali in Kargil to protect a bridge from the enemies because it is the only way to carry supplies to the Indian army in that sector. How they protect the Bridge and kill the enemies.
Performance:
Everyone in the cast have done a good job. I thought Devgan was the best.
Tanisha acted well but there was hardly anything for her to do in the movie. Nandana Sen had no role except to bare her back in one scene.
My opinion:
The Devgan flashback is boring and useless. The entire flashback could have been edited out of the movie. It has nothing to add except running time!
The Village scenes could have been edited further to make the movie faster and crisper.
The action / war scenes are very thrilling and well taken.
The movie is fast paced except a few scenes.
Go ahead and watch it! It is certainly worth it.