Cast – Rana Dagubatti, Atul Kulkarni, Kay Kay Menon, Taapsee Pannu
Director – Sankalp Reddy
Writers- Azad Alam, Gangaraju Gunnam
It’s been rightly touted as the first underwater war film. And I would add that it’s a thriller and post intermission, with almost a no breather.
It’s based on the story of how the Indian submarine S21 bravely undermined the evil intentions of the Pakistani submarine called Ghazi. This incidence was a prelude to war of 1971.
War films in our cinema , we might have seen many but it was a totally new thing to see the nuances of how things would operate in a submarine. I would mention here that the visual effects are nothing great to mention about and there are a few glitches in detailing but screenplay by Sankalp Reddy and Niranjan Reddy manages to give us a pretty engrossing fare which more than compensates for the loopholes.
The performances are good. Rana Daggubati gives a very restrained and impressive performance. Atul Kulkarni is good. Kay Kay Menon is tad dramatic but didn’t find that too out of place considering that he plays an over aggressive officer.
It’s a mystery as to why Tapasee Pannu was playing a character with absolutely nothing to do except give same expressions throughout and almost no relevance.
The closed submarine surrounds and the tense hit and miss games give us quite a many nail biting moments. Many a times, we realise that we are holding breath. It’s these sheer edge of the seat moments which the director Sankalp Reddy creates that make us completely absolve him of some over-dramatization and glitches . With no songs or sub plots to slacken the pace, he doesn’t let the tension subside till the very end.
Overall , I found the movie absolutely thrilling and engrossing. Definitely recommended for that adrenaline rush and those tense moments.
Score 8 on 10.