Operation Valentine

Based on a true story "Operation Valentine" is a decent aerial action drama based on the 2019 Pulwama terrorist attack and the Indian Air Force's retaliatory Balakot Air Strikes. What is refreshing compared to Yodha is that Operation Valentine does not show Pakistani Air Force to be dumbos. Personally, I found the visual effects and cinematography to be fairly descent, especially the aerial dog fights. First half is a bit slow, but the second half picks up and visually exceeds expectations.

There are comparisons being drawn to Fighter and hence the average lower rating but personally I found the film to be a lighter and more realistic version of Fighter and better than Agnipankh, the film is fun to watch. Not sure about the Telegu version (there are mixed reviews) but the Hindi version had decent dialogues. Deepika no doubt is much better than Ruhani who is wooden. With a 5x times more budget the VFX is much better in Fighter, however as usual as a Bollywood blockbuster Fighter concentrates a lot on song and dance and hardly has any Airforce Training Sorties or simulations. In fact all the fighter jets used in the actual mission were portrayed wrongly in Fighter. As an Defence and AF enthusiast, I loved the Air Force training aspects of Operation Valentine. Hrithik Roshan is showing his age whereas Varun Tej looks the part. The Script was average for both.

Anyone who knows the technical details and exact events that happened in real life, will appreciate this movie. This movie correctly depicts almost everything that happened in the Balakot air strike.

Comparing this to "Fighter" movie which was made with 5x times more budget than Operation Valentine got almost every detail wrong. "Fighter" movie over powered the enemy and under powered the protagonist, not only that they got all Fighter Jets used in the operation wrong. They added dance numbers and made it a commercial movie, which is why it did more numbers.

"Operation Valentine" on the other hand correctly depicted almost all variants of fighter jets used in the operation, along with getting all events true to real life. To Finish off, It doesn't just get the technical details right, it is also a good entertainer. But if you're looking for dance numbers, you should look elsewhere. I could only imagine what they could've done with a budget similar to big budget movies.

Highly disappointed with the movie. It has bad graphics (which is normal in the Telugu industry), terrible dialogues, and a very forgettable storyline.

There are no gripping scenes. The movie tries to mix Hollywood style shots with an Indian storyline, and resulted in absolute disaster. The acting of the cast was very artificial, and added zero emotion to the movie.

The storyline of the movie is a very generic storyline, involving terrorists and the Indian Air Force. Moreover, the poor storyline makes the movie so boring, I slept halfway in the middle.

Overall, DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME in watching this movie. There are better movies than this.

I should start the review by mentioning that hats off to the team for making this movie in such a tight budget . Much more technicalities shown in this film as compared to Fighter. Also to add , Varun Tej and Manushi were great , along with this actor bhatt also did a great job. SAMs , AWACS , ANTI RADIATION MISSLES , BOMBER , RADAR , Sukhoi , F-16 , Mirage , Mig and much more. I am surely impressed. Well done team.

Now for those who are comparing this with Top Gun or Maverick ...just give these directors half a budget of what they get to produce a movie and then compare. The graphics shouldn't be compared at all , after all they were shot truly airborne while these are Vfx so please.

Did go to the movie without knowing the story. It started slow but the pace picked up slowly. By interval, you are in the edge of your seat. The direction, acting, music and VFX were just in enough dose. Congrats to the entire team for making this movie. Though the star cast is not well known, they have pulled it off nicely. Definitely a good watch for the weekend. I didn't expect the VFX. To be so good. It really elevated the aerial fight scenes. Almost to the Hollywood standards. Screenplay had played a very good part to keep the flow. No unnecessary songs that kept the movie going. Finally, the photography did great justice to the gorgeous locations in kashmir.