1971: Beyond Borders

1971: Beyond Borders is a war film directed by Major Ravi. The film stars Mohanlal, Allu Sirish and Arunoday Singh.

The film is a fictional story based on the backdrop of 1971 India Pakistan war from a soldier's point of view.

This is probably one of the worst war films i have ever seen. The worst part is the casting and the film doesn't looks natural. A pot bellied major who seems to be more interested in drinking, an hapless looking Indian army and an second lieutenant who is more interested in love letters. This film is more about preaching and less about war and even the war scenes doesn't looks natural.

Screenplay of the film is slow and acting in the film is decent. The one more factor that makes this film less then a war film is that the film is more and more based on just one man and no war can be described on the viewpoint of just one man. The film also lacks facts.

Only true and hardcore Mohanlal fans will like this film for others who are coming to watch a war film will be disappointed as this film is anything but a war film.

If you are someone so keen on movies having a message, 1971 Beyond Borders have messages written all over it. The ultimate one is that wars shouldn't be there. The format here is very simple. You can very easily predict who all are going to die in the war field and what will be that sentimental dialogue which will echo when they die. There is nothing tactically amusing about the war field that gets depicted here and there are a lot of "Sahadevan" worshipping scenes which looks too tacky. From the initial Georgia sequence to the 1971 story, there is this blatant India worshipping through dialogues which looks highly dramatic. If there was a natural feel in Pakistanis having respect for us, things would have looked a bit more real. Seeing our army getting respect is indeed a good feeling, but pushing it to a level where a stabbed Pakistani soldier's last words are "Maan Gaye" (meaning he agrees that you are great) is a bit awkward.

1971 Beyond Borders hasn't really explored the actor in Mohanlal in an attractive way. He has two tones in the film, one where he is the friendly guy in his hometown and the other where he is a strict officer in the border. In both versions he is playing this character that is being frequently hailed by everyone. Arunoday Singh who has mostly got forgettable roles in Bollywood looked more real and sensible in this film. Well Allu Sirish is the market widener for this film. The writing of that character isn't that smooth and for your information Sahadevan says "Thank You Buddy" to him in one scene. Asha Sharath, Sudheer Karamana, Renji Panicker, Devan, Saiju Kurup, Manikkuttan and several others are there in the elaborate cast with minimal roles.

I have to admit I had decided I am not going to like this movie before I watched it. After watching the movie promotions, trailers and interviews, I kind of gathered that there is no substance in the movie. Only thing that stands out about Major Ravi is his devotion for Mohanlal. Spot reviews from theaters (obviously by Mohanlal fans associations) sounded dubious. Most media reviews sounded rigged too. Despite all that I decided to give it my 2 hours.

When I saw a group of Indian soldiers led by Mohanlal jumped out of a military convoy holding machine guns and aimlessly scattering about with no skills and no practice, I knew this movie is not for me. I lasted for about 10 minutes after that. I had to walk out of the fiasco.

Similar to how internal trading is illegal in stock market, padded reviews by fans associations should be made illegal.

If you look at Major Ravi's filmography, it is clear what his intentions are. However, none of his films are cinematically strong. They are like used bullet shells that have no use but are there to remind us about wars. This war drama is no different.

Sahadevan (Mohanlal) is a Major in the Indian army who speaks awful Hindi and English, and leads a team of largely Malayali soldiers at the border. It's 1971, and India is sporadically at war with East or West Pakistan (it's unclear). Although Sahadevan has a family back home, he is dedicated at his work and on the task at hand, which is to kill as many enemies as possible in the battlefield. With insubordination, arrogance, constant thirst for alcohol, and a large belly that prevents free movement of his body as weapons, he leads his battalion against a faction of Pakistani soldiers headed by Commander Akram Raja (Arunoday Singh), who (no prize for guessing) also has a family back home.

The narrative has no idea what it's doing because at one point, we see a soldier being sent to help a father grieve his father's loss and at another, we see Sahadevan reprimanding a young soldier for exchanging risqué pornographic love letters with his newly-wedded wife. To say the least, everything is all over the place. It looks like Director Ravi gathered all typical war elements in his hand, put it in a Preethi mixer grinder, and blended it till the time he was satisfied and was able to cook up a pretentious and pathetic story to decorate the blended mixture with. I'm not sure if the guarantee provided by Preethi was enough, because the final dish looks stale, smells ghastly, and tastes like human viscera. Throughout the film, the Indian soldiers are running and walking around the field in groups like they are in a treasure hunt. Just plain awful!

There's not a single good point to talk about 1971: Beyond Borders except Arunoday Singh's below average performance as a moral army man. Whatever the makers intended by creating such an ambitious yet floppy film is beyond me, because neither the technical aspects nor the writing is proper here. Mohanlal is a phenomenal actor but seeing him blurt out nonsense and play with a tank in a war field is excruciatingly painful. His character is a self-righteous pig who ogles at young married women when not at the war-front. While the supporting cast also disappoint with their unpolished performance, it is untalented Allu Sirish who becomes another pain in the neck portraying a soldier like he's a floozy.

Director Ravi is an awful director, and this film proves it once again. His intentions as a former army man may be novel, but it's a kind request from a serious cinema-watcher that he stop making us - the general, informed audience - put up with such ludicrous war films. I'm not even going to talk about those songs that are part of this 130-minute madness.

BOTTOM LINE: Major Ravi's "1971: Beyond Borders" is not a war film, but instead a mockery of war, picturised using painted characters that do not know anything about war just like the people who made the film. It is cringe-worthy, melodramatic, and purely imaginative. Skip for life!

Can be watched with a typical Indian family? YES

The movie begins with colonel Mahadevan commanding a UN mission. The mission scenes were short and the focus soon shifted to retired major Sahadevan. The film shifts to a flash back to the 1971 period. By the way Mohanlal has got really fat. But that didn't stop the versatile actor from pumping patriotism into our veins. However the plot wasn't interesting enough to keep you on your edges. The movie begins to lag after a point making it boring to watch. An unnecessary song sequence just added to the boredom. It was only until the tank scene, things started to get interesting again. The movie in a whole wasn't convincing enough regarding various emotional scenes. There was an attempt to recreate Jeeva's character in Keerthichakra but again wasn't convincing enough. The entire film tries to tell us why Sahadevan was impressed by the valor of Colonel Raja but as the viewers we just couldn't feel it. Frankly speaking Picket 43 and Keerthichakra could kick this movie out of the park.