War is an Indian action-thriller about a soldier who has to eliminate his former mentor who has gone rogue and starts assassinating influential targets around the world for mysterious reasons.
The movie convinces on numerous levels. The story comes around with numerous surprising twists and turns that will keep the spectators on the edge of their seats until the very end. Most of the characters have interesting background stories, convictions and motives which make the two lead characters progressively more profound as the movie unfolds in particular. The action scenes are spectacular and vary from explosive car chases to combats in an old church that has fallen into disrepair. The special effects have been designed with care as the camera work and light techniques are very solid except from one unnecessarily nauseating scene in a conference room. The beautiful locations and settings are very colourful and vary from India over Italy to the Arctic Circle.
On the negative side, the first half of the movie has a confusing chronological order and constantly switches from past to present and back again when a smoother chronological structure would have been much easier to understand. The movie includes two completely unnecessary dance choreographies that harm the movie's flow, contradict the tense atmosphere and look mildly amusingly amateurish. Some plot elements are a little bit over-the-top and it feels as if the scriptwriters had tried to include ideas for three movies into one single film which make the movie slightly overloaded. Some acting performances are rather wooden such as Vaani Kapoor's who was probably chosen for her role because of her elegant physical appearance but is lacking elementary acting skills.
Still, War is a very entertaining action-thriller of epic proportions that improves steadily until a gripping finale. Anyone who likes action films, spy flicks or thrillers should give this dynamic movie a try. Fans of the Bourne trilogy, the Fast and the Furious franchise and the xXx films might discover a wonderful hidden gem here.
