Bharateeyans

Story: Six young men and women accused of murder are enlisted for a mysterious mission in exchange for their freedom and to save their families. They find themselves in enemy territory amid a conspiracy that can destroy India. They must choose between the nation and the family. Whom would they save, and can they stop the attack?

Review: Writer-director Deena Raj sets out to deliver an action-packed tale of patriotism meant to stir the youth. And he does so through six characters (three young men and women each), who do not have names but are identified as Telugu (Nirroze Putcha), Bhojpuri (Subha Ranjan), Nepali (Sonam Thendup Barphunga), Punjabi (Samaira Sandhu), Tripura (Peden O Namgyal), and Bengali (Rajeswari Chakraborty). The film begins with these strangers assembling after mysterious, powerful people promise to save each one from murder charges and threaten to harm their family members if they do not go on a mission chalked out for them. The story then moves to their training to enter the enemy nation’s territory beyond the buffer zone, accompanied by a smuggler called Tamil. Whether they manage to avert the threat forms the rest of the story.

The movie has patriotism, family values and love at its core, but the writing and treatment are outrageous and slipshod. The overused plot of releasing a deadly virus in India and stereotypical villains like a High Command official (Mahendra Bagdas) and his evil son (Phurba Lama) make the story far from convincing or compelling. While the film seems too stretched at 157 minutes, the long-drawn tracks make the narrative sloppy, and the screenplay further loses tautness with subplots such as a Marathi matriarch hunting down her son-in-law for killing her son, and secret agents being killed by the enemy father-son duo. Many elements seem forced—the love story angle between the characters, animosity between Bhojpuri and Telugu, and one of the six people being a double agent, and so on.

The cinematography (Jayapal Reddy Nimmala) is the only redeeming part of this directionless drama. The performances are way below average, though the action is passable. Overall, an unconvincing story, insipid narrative, and over-the-top performances fail to evoke emotion of any kind.