Bhuj: The Pride of India Review: Strictly Average!

It might sound unbelievable, but Bhuj: The Pride of India provides the maximum amount of war footage any Bollywood movie has ever seen. Take films like Haqeeqat and Border into account, and, yes, this Ajay Devgn surpasses these two magnum opuses. However, war footage and action sequences do not make the whole film, and Bhuj has failed to understand that. It could be because it had multiple stories to tell at the same while Haqeeqat and Border were just about that one specific war with the needed characters.

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In Bhuj: The Pride of India, four-five plot points were being narrated simultaneously, and the entire ordeal felt too much to carry for a debutant director like Abhishek Dudhaiya, who doesn’t seem to have come out of a TV soap opera mindset yet.

First off, Bhuj: The Pride of India narrates the story of 300 Gujarati women who supported the Indian Air Force to build a runway. And concurrently, it also details the events of war following nearby, and the biggest and the last war happened for East Pakistan (today’s Bangladesh).

Marketed as the story of Bhuj, the writers, in my opinion, did not allot much runtime to the title story. Maybe a good thirty percent, if I’m not wrong, and the remaining seven percent explored the other three stories.

The movie has all the relatable and references such as the East Pakistan War, Indira Gandhi, Sam Manekshaw, Battle of Longewala, and all the real characters of this story. However, it fails to manage that linear equation of storyline, and the scattered narration did not help.

The performances from the star cast are underwhelming. Ajay Devgn is strictly average, yes I am saying it because his caliber is damn too high for such great stories, but the writer and director both didn’t recognize it. Sharad Kelkar and Sanjay Dutt are below average, and the female leads, Sonakshi Sinha, Nora Fatehi, are just there to complete their scenes. No matter how dull it looks, they had to finish their parts with underwhelming dialogue delivery.

Bhuj: The Pride of India is an over-explosive film. Like I said at the very beginning of my review, it provides a ton of war footage, but Abhishek Dudhaiya was clueless about where to place them effectively. It starts off strong with high-octane explosions, but it dwindles into mediocrity as it moves on. Thankfully it’s a well-faced film, not boring at all.

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Bhuj was a grand story that deserved to be told on a bigger scale with a much well-refined vision, and director Dudhaiya lacks both. Maybe, just maybe, Om Raut could’ve been a proper fit. Overall, this Disney+ Hotstar Original is strictly average, but yes, the TV audience may find it decent as they can digest anything for the sake of drama and entertainment. Watch ‘Bhuj: The Pride of India’ on Disney+ Hotstar here.

‘Bhuj: The Pride of India’ Rating – 2/5

Review by @samthebestest_

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