The very first movie with my date and its Tango Charlie. I was not too sure if this was the right move for me, but all I can say is that the movie has been made with all the right moves.
Directed by Mani Shankar, this latest out-of-the-box bollywood flick stars the chocolate faced Bobby Deol, the very matured Ajay Devagan in the major roles.
The movie starts off in the rugged and inhospitable terrain of the Kashmir mountains where Sunjay Dutt and Suniel Shetty are on a routine photographic reconnaissance mission in their chopper. Both the actors have small cameos to perform which they do without any fuss and ado.
During this mission they come across the body of a severely injured BSF Soldier lying in the snow. Despite orders from their superiors not to land their chopper for the rescue, they do so. And what they find...or rather who they find there is none but Tango Charlie lying unconscious with a bullet wound.
Tango Charlie is the codename for sepoy Tarun Chauhan played with superb elan and great maturity by Bobby Deol.
Hoisting the injured soldier into their chopper, they head back to the base when they find Tango Charlie’s private diary. In this diary is the entire story of Tango Charlie’s life, the circumstances he goes through, the horrors he comes to terms with, the unimaginable hardships which toughens the soldier, and last but not the least his love interest. Yes...you guessed it right, the entire movie now runs as being read in the diary.
What follows next is not run-of-the-mill war stories or bollywood madness. Neither does it stand in the same league of Saving Private Ryan or Guns of Naverone, nor are you fed with the usual enemy bashing, loud mouthing jingoism.
Its about the life of the BSF Soldier Tango Charlie in different parts of the country where he is posted to fight off the violence. The story starts off with Tango being posted to Manipur to fight off the Bodo insurgents.
This is where he meets up with his chief, Muhammad Ali (played exceedingly well by Ajay Devagan). The chief teaches him the art of war, the art of thinking and outwitting the enemies. The lessons learnt goes a long way in making a tough guy out of Tango Charlie.
Rather than a war movie where Indian soldiers battle the Paki soldiers while waiting for letters from home, singing songs et al...what we have in this movie is about the enemies within the state. The story moves from Manipur, to the Naxal terrain of Andhra Pradesh to fighting off rioters in Gujarat and finally to safeguarding a bridge during the wartime Kargil.
All through the situations, the performances of Deol & Devagan are commendable. Deol shows his maturity at both the light hearted comic scenes and the emotional ones. The one where he shows off his English language prowess to his friends is amazingly hilarious.
The other scene in Gujarat where he visits the family of a dead to confess has been performed well and handled very well too. Devagan carries himself easily with his controlled and strict performance as the chief.
The cinematography is quite good and the jungles of Manipur are shot well and realistically. Songs and music are nothing much to talk about though.
Among others, the cameos by Dutt & Shetty are passable. Nothing complicated for them here. Kelly Dorji as the Bodo leader shows menace and terror in his performance.
A particular scene where he slashes the guts of a BSF soldier, ties him to a tree and pumps two bullets to his knees leaving him to a excruciating death is one of the highligts of the movie. The ladies in Tanishaa and Nandana Sen do not have much to do. Both are passable in their performances, though Nandana is a better bet of the two.
All in all, a better package from Bollywood different in all aspects. Just dont expect your date to get too thrilled with you on watching the movie together. Kids can avoid the excessive violence too.