LOC: Kargil

LOC is one of the most moving movies ever made. The movie is based on the war that actually happened in Kargil between India and Pakistan. LOC is a tribute, a homage to our brave and selfless soldiers who have laid down their lives to safeguard ours. This movie has made me realize the extent of sacrifice a soldier makes to protect us scores of civilians most of whom he does not even know. It has made me see them in a completely different light and i cannot help but appreciate the effort of a film maker who has tried to immortalize their sacrifice on the celluloid.

The movie is long. But that is because the script demands it. The movie has an amazing cast and everyone has given outstanding performances. It is an emotional journey and a saga of unseen bravery and unimaginable strength of character.

The film's characters represent the Kargil martyrs and the other brave soldiers of the Indian Army. So you have Captain Anuj Nayyar, Captain Vikram Batra, Lieutenant Manoj Pandey, Lieutenant Colonel Y K Joshi and many of the other brave men who authored the script that made India the winner in the Kargil war. It captures their valor in the field of battle, shows how they dealt with each new challenge and each new hardship with renewed vigor, how they motivated the soldiers under their command under the most pressured conditions and how they destroyed their enemies. It encapsulates the soldier's quest for victory in extremely hostile conditions.

LOC Kargil is based on authentic research and gives you the events as they took place. A lot of care has been taken to see that the film is accurate even in its minutest detail. The background score and dialogs are gripping. The songs too, are pretty intense and have been extremely well written and composed. The lyrics motivate you, move you and also wrench your heart out.

LOC tries to tell the story of the soldiers and their families. It tells you about the sacrifice that a soldier makes for his country and the loss that his family suffers in the process. As the trailers said..."every bullet in a war finds its mark... into a woman's heart". A lot of soldiers died in the Kargil war and this movie makes an effort to show their sacrifice before we forget it. It is a must watch, especially for every Indian in the world.

I have come to the conclusion that Bollywood does not know how to make War Films. A plain vanilla Documentary would have made more justice to the Martyr's of the kargil. The movie is agonsingly long, too many charecters that hoover over a lost script, a technical disaster and repetious to the core. The filmmaker has tried his best to lend auntheticity by using the real terrain but after an hour of the movie it is like Dejavue. The problem I see is Amateur consultants and dialogue that dilutes the theme and reduces the content to a mear childrens play. Bollywood is the leader when it comes to Musical but when it comes to aunthenticity in depicting a war and special effects the two Movies that come close are "The Hero" and "Gadar-Ek Prem Katha". This movie is an unmitigated disaster even though the Producers intentions were laudable and Patriotic.

This movie could have been so much better but the director looks like he gave it his best. Many of the props including the uniforms, badges, weapons, artillery, helicopters etc etc were all authentic to the core. There are lot of good things in this movie but the battle scenes are just too cheesy, unreal and overly patriotic to make sense. Why do they always have to use that slow-motion death sequence routine again and again? It is not touching. Its embarrassing.

While the actors could er.."act" well...they were'nt too convincing as fighting soldiers, starting from how the stormed an enemy post, to their stance. The intensity of the battles comes out through excellent use of sound and men shouting but the tracer bullets flying and the flamebursts from the weapons are simply not to be found. Thus when a soldier is supposed to fire a weapon, it does'nt really show. Also, the explosions from mortar, grenades and shells seem extremely impotent as the radius of the blast is extremely small and unconvincing.

The dialog however, is brilliant. Totally outstanding, perhaps worth the entire movie. There are enough swears in this movie on the lines of "motherfer" and "sisterfer" to give Pulp Fiction a run for its money. But since they are also used on the battlefield under pressure, it does not seem as wanton as in other movies. It is a real fact however, that such swears were used on the Kargil battlefield. Talk about attention to detail! The pressure on the soldiers did show, although the fighting did not. The actors did a great job at what they were told to do. If they were trained better and the action sequences better written and choreographed to make them a tiny bit realistic, they movie could have been a real winner. I did shed a few tears here and there though. Even though the action sequences are so flawed, the actors give it all their energy and the unbelievable sacrifices that the soldiers made were no doubt the driving force behind. This movie is worth watching if you keep an open mind. It is at least a good attempt at an honest tribute, even if at times, it can be embarrassing.

When I was watching this movie, I was simultaneously being hit by two things

• the ordinariness of the 'production' quality. What is called 'production values' - lighting, sound, authenticity of effect, bullets hitting people, the environment. See 'Saving Private Ryan', 'Thin Red Line', 'Black Hawk Down', which have you shivering, and diving for cover as bullets fly. I know we don't have the kind of money that they have, but as a member of the audience I have become terribly spoilt by Hollywood, what more can I say. Remember that I WANTED to like the movie, so I am not being careless when I comment that it came across as too artificial and stage like. All the hill storming scenes for e.g., are all from the same camera angle and all have a hill bathed in a uniform light, as if from a lamppost, and just did not pull me into forgetting it was happening on screen. I was too cognisant that I was watching from an aloof medium, a seat facing a stage on what this was all happening perhaps.

• The story, the challenges our men faced, their pain, their courage, the difficulty of the situation, all of that.

It struck me that as a movie buff, I should try to somehow be able to differentiate the two even in the midst of 'enjoying' the movie. Differentiate all that is hitting me because of what happened out there from that which is hitting me only because of the way it has been treated / presented by JP. I found, limited as I was in my ability to do this, that despite my best wishes to conclude otherwise, I was being only 'moved' by the facts of the former, and not at all by the effort of the latter. If a young guy, who is about to get married to his childhood fiancée dies while bravely storming a hill currently occupied by miserable mother*&£$£s I would strangle personally if I had the guts, its going to move me in tears by just hearing about it. What I couldn't find was a camera angle, a single feature of the presentation that added to this impact. In fact, I will go so far as to claim that the artificiality of the treatment took away some of it.

That's about it - was very moved by what the story had to convey, and the research etc has no doubt been brilliant, but as a celluloid 'creation' , didn't find any 'value add' - as a documentary of what happened in itself its priceless, if only because film reaches out to a lot more people than any other media, including newspapers etc.

In 1999, under the scheme of General Parvez Musharraf, our perennial enemy backstabbed us and Pakistani soldiers crossed the LOC in the disguise of civilian infiltrators. Some of the regular patrol parties of Indian soldiers went missing and later on, the damaged corpses of our young soldiers were found. And then the eyes of the sleeping Indian politicians and the intelligence bureau got opened to the fact that there has been large scale illegal infiltration on our soil from the other side of the LOC. A formally undeclared war started which lasted for around 50 days and we lost several precious lives of Indian soldiers. The war had to be won in the end and we won it but the price that was paid was just too much.

The memory of the Indian masses is short and we very easily forget the sacrifices of the sacrificing ones and get back to our routines of earning a living. Hence, filmmaker J.P. Dutta tagged the line to the title of this movie - 'BEFORE WE FORGET'. Yes, he did an exemplary thing by making this movie before the invaluable sacrifices of the young bravehearts were forgotten by the Indian public. Mr. Dutta used real locations and even real ammunition to shoot this movie. And thereby he has brought the passionate and emotional tales of the real Indian soldiers alive on the screen. All the small and big tales with less footage to some and more footage to some other, are real and sensitive to the hilt.

Mr. Dutta has presented everything with utmost authenticity on the screen which shows his deep research work in this regard. He had brought that period of May-July 1999 alive on the screen. A great effort indeed which entitles him for a big hand by the audience. Besides, he has been able to extract exemplary performances from the complete cast. Whether the role is a smaller one or a bigger one, everybody has given his best. Females did not have much to do. The best female performer is undoubtedly, Maaya Alagh. This veteran actress has delivered a highly touching performance as the mother of Lieutenant Manoj Pandey (Ajay Devgan).

Anu Malik's music with Jaaved Akhtar's lyrics could not top up the charts but if you just listen to the songs peacefully and patiently, you will feel the quality of both the words and the tunes. The songs are quite long because the director had to accommodate the scenes of several actors while the song was continuing, but they are highly patriotic as well as touching. My favourite is Seemayen Bulaayen Tujhe Chal Raahi. But the other songs - Main Kahin Bhi Rahoon Har Kadam Har Ghadi, Pyar Bhara Geet Koi Dekho Piya Tumko Gaana Hi Hoga, Aao Jo Laut Ke Tum Ghar Ho Khushi Se Bhara etc. are also impressive and perfectly in line of the mood and the genre of the movie.

In my view, Mr. Dutta himself committed two major mistakes which he should have avoided. Firstly, he has shown the soldiers mouthing highly obscene abuses. He had not done so in Border (1997) and it was correct. In this movie, on one hand, the soldiers are getting enthusiasm through religious slogans like Raja Raamchandra Ki Jai, Durga Maata Ki Jai and Jai Mahakaali whereas on the other, they are mouthing so bad words that the females (and also the decorous males) may find it difficult to keep their ears open. Swearings of mother and sister have been given so freely that the decency level has come down to very low. Though such words have been partially beeped, yet it can be understood with ease in each such case what is the complete word. This minus point has snatched the characteristic of a family movie from it. In the ending scenes, Colonel Y.K. Joshi (Sanjay Dutt) asks his subordinates to respect the dead bodies of the Pak soldiers. Then was it necessary to show disrespect to the mothers and sisters of the soldiers of either side ? Patriotism is not enriched by expletives Mr. Dutta.

Secondly, he has tried to include as many incidents from the Kargil war as possible in the movie (still he could not include all such battles covered in that war) forgetting that the movie has to be completed within a reasonable time-duration. The fact that he overlooked is that unlike Border which was based on a particular battle in the 1971 war, the canvas of the story of this movie was many times more extensive and hence the temptation to cover everything had to be kept under check. Besides, we all know that the soldiers away from their homes miss their families and their beloved and vice-versa. This is an aspect which fills the gaps in a war-based movie with sentiments and tender feelings. However when there are so many characters (of soldiers), all of them cannot be accommodated in common songs. Mr. Dutta's attempt to do so have not only made the songs extremely long but also monotonous.

All things said and done, irrespective of its commercial outcome, J.P. Dutta has made an honest and highly impressive movie. It's able to arouse love for your country in your heart. The complete unit of the movie including all those appearing on the screen and all those who worked behind the screen deserves a standing ovation from the audience.