This Aditya Roy Kapur actioner honestly felt like I was watching a Tiger Shroff film!
Read Full Rashtra Kavach: Om Movie Review –
Director: Kapil Verma
Cast: Aditya Roy Kapur, Sanjana Sanghi, Jackie Shroff, Prakash Raj, Ashutosh Rana
Rating: 2/5
Runtime: 2h 15m
Storyline:
From Om: The Battle Within, the movie title changed to Rashtra Kavach: Om. Yaar isse accha toh Om – the One Punch Man rakhna chaiye tha naam. One dishoom, 50 enemies go flying. Yawn. Like we haven’t seen that before!
Aditya Roy Kapur (all bulky, bronzed and beefy) plays Om Rathod, a Para Commando – on the mission to recover Kavach. What is Kavach now? Easy explanation – the technology is basically like the Protego charm from Harry Potter, but against nuclear attacks.
The road to Kavach is fraught with all the melodrama of a memory loss, deshdrohi scientist baap, and numerous betrayals at every turn.
Shot on the mission, Soldier Om wakes up from a coma (buff as ever) but as Rishi. He is actually Rishi Rathod, son of dhoti-wearing nuclear scientist Dev Rathod (Jackie Shroff). But Yeh Dev toh Dev Manus nai, harami nikla.
Now, Dev was accused of being a traitor and selling off India’s ‘nuclear defence shield aka Kavach’ to foreign countries before disappearing. Rishi/Om is confused about what to believe since the only thing he remembers is a childhood memory of his house burning down as his father yells ‘Run Rishi Run’.
Is Dev actually a deshdrohi or deshbhakt? His brother Jai Rathod (Ashutosh Rana) firmly believes the latter. After the fire, he takes in and raises Rishi as his own son and even gives him the name Om. Rana also plays the role of a mentor to him along with a father figure.
Will the Kavach technology be successfully retrieved before it makes its way to the wrong hands? Watch Rashtra Kavach: Om to know –
What Do We Think?
I would once again like to reiterate that this feels like Tiger Shroff’s brand of film. Aditya Roy Kapur looks incredibly hot and his dedication in pulling off this physical transformation is commendable, but it still fails to save the film.
And for the love of God, enough with those slow-mo action shots! I have nothing against over-the-top action provided it’s well-executed. But the action in Om is lazily choreographed with more than a liberal amount of time-freezing frames every time Aditya bashes something. (One can make a drinking game out of this, not kidding)
Stony-faced in the action scenes, Aditya tries to emote convincingly in the heartfelt scenes but the emotional connection feels superficial. Delicate, doe-eyed beauty Sanjana Sanghi is in the film to prove ‘girls can also fight’. She appears to be totally miscast for the role and doesn’t get much of a character arc.
Veterans Prakash Raj and Ashutosh Rana are sadly wasted in this predictable AF story. Jackie Shroff has a meaty role though and seems to be having fun.
I truly do believe Aditya can be an excellent action hero, but I want to see stylish shots that are MORE than him just bashing 20 people in a row, one-man-army style. It’s absolutely passé.
He is better and CAN act better than this. Please choose good scripts, mah dude. (Who loved him in Fitoor? Can I get a hell yeah?)
Gotta say Kala Sha Kala ft Elnaaz Norouzi is a groovy AF song, though it appears so randomly in the movie.
Hit Or Miss?
Go if you want to ogle at Aditya Roy Kapur’s bronze biceps. If not, then skip and watch Rocketry: The Nambi Effect instead, it’s the far superior movie this weekend.