Every country has its special forces, and I'm sure every nation on Earth likes to think that theirs are a bit more special than most. Yodha seems to be the Indian version of the SAS (whether they really are, or were made up for the film, I don't know).
Just about every film about special services centres round an inividual who's jolly good at killing bad guys, but whose disregard of protocol annoys his superiors. Then an operation goes wrong (not our hero's fault, but he's conveniently placed to take the blame). He's suspended.
Then the film moves to the main event. Our hero is drawn into something really big. Not only that, he's set up to make it look as though he's gone rogue, so that even his former comrades are out to get him. Yada, yada yada, shoot-out, big explosion, guess who saves the day and is reinstated?
It's a tried and trusted formula, which needs a certain amount of style to lift it out of the very ordinary. James Bond has this style; John Wick has this style; Arnie had it in his earlier films. Yodha doesn't.
The fight scenes are well-choreographed, but the pulse doesn't race. The twists aren't too difficult to see coming; the hero's relationship problems are a yawn.
This isn't a bad film, but it's formulaic, predictable and - for all its action sequences - pedestrian. Oh, and the villain's disappointingly short on charisma.
This is also the first film I've seen that had an actual interval in the cinema since Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
