120 Bahadur Review: Stirring Tribute With Minor Flaws

120 Bahadur Review: Stirring Tribute With Minor Flaws

MUMBAI — Amid the cacophony of Bollywood's blockbuster bonanza, 120 Bahadur arrives like a clarion call from the frozen fringes of history, a somber and stirring homage to the 120 soldiers of Charlie Company, 13 Kumaon Regiment, who etched an indelible saga of sacrifice at Rezang La during the 1962 India-China war. Directed by Razneesh "Razy" Ghai, the film—starring Farhan Akhtar in a career-defining turn as the Param Vir Chakra recipient Major Shaitan Singh—unfurls a narrative of unyielding valor in the face of sub-zero slaughter, where the whine of bullets and the wail of winds compose a requiem for the forgotten fallen. Premiering on November 15 to coincide with the 63rd anniversary of the battle, this 130-minute meditation on martyrdom blends raw realism with restrained reverence, earning accolades for its emotional authenticity and technical tenacity, even as it grapples with occasional narrative stutters that keep it from unassailable excellence.

Ghai, transitioning from the indie intimacy of Dhaak (2023) to this epic of endurance, crafts a chamber drama amid the Himalayan hellscape, eschewing the explosive excess of Uri: The Surgical Strike (2019) for a focus on fraternity forged in frostbite. Farhan Akhtar, transformed through rigorous physical prep and Pahari dialect drills, embodies Shaitan Singh with a quiet intensity that speaks volumes in silence—his gaze a grenade of grief and grit. The ensemble, a mix of seasoned thespians and fresh faces from Uttarakhand's regiments, breathes life into the platoon's polyglot pulse, turning abstract heroism into achingly human vignettes. With a modest Rs 50 crore budget from Maddock Films and Jio Studios, 120 Bahadur has amassed Rs 35 crore in its debut week, resonating in multiplexes where audiences seek substance over spectacle.

At its zenith, the film soars as a sensory siege: the crunch of snow under combat boots, the acrid tang of cordite in -30°C air, the communal clasp of hands around a flickering angithi. Ghai's lens lingers on the men's mundane miracles—sharing gur to stave off hypothermia, reciting Ramcharitmanas verses to mock mortality—crafting a tapestry where courage coexists with camaraderie. Minor flaws mar the margins: a script that occasionally slips into sentimental soliloquies and pacing that plateaus in the prelude, diluting the denouement's dynamism. Yet, 120 Bahadur remains a resonant requiem, a flawed but fervent flag-bearer for the 1962 war's eclipsed echoes, reminding us that true tributes tremble with truth rather than thunder with triumph.

Echoes of Rezang La: Unearthing the Unsung Epic

120 Bahadur excavates a chapter consigned to history's footnotes: the November 18, 1962, defense of Rezang La pass, where 120 jawans—mostly Ahirs from Haryana's Rewari—held a 5-km front against 3,000 People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops in one of the India-China war's bloodiest clashes. Drawing from Brigadier John Dalvi's Himalayan Blunder (1969), survivor Naib Subedar Chandan Singh's oral histories, and declassified Indian Army dispatches, Ghai resurrects the battle's barbarity with bibliographic fidelity. The pass, a wind-lashed wasteland at 16,000 feet where oxygen thins to 50% sea level, becomes a character of cruel caprice: blizzards blinding sentries, altitude sickness felling five before the first fusillade.

The screenplay, co-written by Ghai and Shubhra Swarup (Masaan, 2015), eschews chronological chronology for a fractured flashback framework, intercutting the assault's anarchy with pre-battle vignettes that vivify the victims. We witness the platoon's pilgrimage from Dehradun's cantonment—Shaitan Singh's commissioning speech invoking Akbar's Akbarnama—to Rezang La's ragged ridges, where maps mislabel the Mandarin menace. The PLA's onslaught, in three escalating escalades, is rendered with restraint: no cartoonish caricatures, but cadres in quilted qipaos advancing through wire entanglements, their bugle blasts a baleful ballad. Ghai's research rigor shines: the Indians' .303 Lee-Enfields jamming in the freeze, the Chinese's PPSh-41 submachine guns chattering death—details distilled from Kumaon Regiment archives.

Strengths surge in the specificity: the platoon's premonition of peril, gleaned from intercepted PLA chatter via rudimentary radios; the moral quandary of a sepoy torn between duty and a dying daughter's plea. Ghai's gaze globalizes the grief—parallels to Thermopylae's 300 or Rorke's Drift's 150—without diluting desi dignity. Stumbles stumble in the sprawl: the 25-minute setup, laden with Nehru-era exposition (Khrushchev's complicity, Kennedy's covert aid), feels freighted, a freight train that freightens rather than freightens. The resolution, fading on a 2022 memorial wreath-laying, risks redundancy, echoing Shershaah's epilogue echo. Nonetheless, the echoes endure: 120 Bahadur as educator, excavating Rezang La from obscurity's oubliette.

Akhtar's Ascetic Anchor: A Performance of Profound Poise

Farhan Akhtar's incarnation of Major Shaitan Singh is the film's fulcrum, a tour de force of transformative toil that transcends typecasting. At 52, Akhtar—last seen in Jee Le Zaraa's jet-set jaunt—underwent a six-month metamorphosis: 15 kg shed via high-altitude simulations in Manali, Pahari patois perfected under Uttarakhandi tutor Rajendra Singh Bhandari, and tactical training with Kumaon veterans that left scars on his psyche. Shaitan emerges not as archetype but anomaly: a Jodhpur-born Jat whose Sandhurst sangfroid conceals a Sufi soul, quoting Ghalib amid the gale ("The heart breaks daily, yet the world spins").

Akhtar's alchemy lies in the interstices: a flicker of fatalism when briefing his subedar on "the long watch," a flinch at a sepoy's frostbitten finger—gestures that gestate grief without grandstanding. The climax, Shaitan rallying his remnants with a grenade gambit—bayonet fixed, eyes ablaze—channels Akhtar's Bhaag Milkha Bhaag endurance, but infuses it with fatal grace, his collapse a crucifixion of command. Critics consecrate: Anupama Chopra (Film Companion, 4/5): "Akhtar's Shaitan is stoic sculpture—chipped but chiseled."

The chorus complements: newcomer Aryan Prajapati as Sepoy Gopal Negi, his wide-eyed wonder wilting to warrior's weariness in a Ram Teri Ganga Maili-esque reverie; Sanya Malhotra as the unseen sister's voiceover, her epistles a epistolary elegy that etches emotional etchings. Annu Kapoor's cameo as the grizzled quartermaster—dispensing dud ammo with sardonic sighs—injects levity, his Vicky Donor verve veiled in veteran veneer. Mohit Raina, as the signals naik, radiates restrained rage, his radio crackle a clarion of crisis.

Flaws fleck the firmament: Prajapati's novice nerves occasionally natter, lines landing limp; Malhotra's disembodied delivery drifts distant. Yet, Akhtar's anchor avails: a performance of poise that pierces the platitudes, making Shaitan not saint, but soldier—flawed, fierce, forever.

Visual and Auditory Alchemy: Ghai's Gripping Grammar

Razneesh Ghai's visual vocabulary is a virtuoso's vade mecum, transforming Rezang La's lunar lethality into a canvas of cinematic calculus. Lensed by Sayak Bhattacharya (Sacred Games), the film favors 2.39:1 widescreen vistas that vastify the void: drone descents into snow-choked gullies, where whiteouts whitewash the world; intimate Steadicam prowls through foxholes, frost riming rifles like rime on relics. The IMAX rollout—30 screens nationwide—immerses in the immensity: a single LMG burst blooming in slow-mo, shrapnel shards scintillating like shrapnel stars.

Editing by Hemanti Sarkar (NH10) slices with scalpel sharpness: cross-cuts between PLA bugles and Indian bugle calls build binaural binaries, while montages of mundane (boot-polishing in barracks) montage the madness. VFX from PhantomFX, clocking Rs 10 crore, render recoil realism without ridicule—bullet tracers tracing trajectories, avalanches avalanching with avalanche authenticity.

Soundscape sorcery seals the spell: Resul Pookutty's protégé, Abhishek Bhardwaj, layers the auditory assault: the whip-crack of .303 rounds, the whoosh of wind whipping wires, the whisper of woolen pathani against skin—a son et lumière that sublimates silence into suspense. The score, by Shashwat Sachdev (Chandu Champion), is a minimalist masterpiece: flute laments for lost letters, dhol drums doping the dread, Kumaoni folk refrains refracting resilience. No orchestral ostentation—just the heartbeat throb of a tanpura underscoring Shaitan's soliloquy.

Quibbles quirk: VFX veins show in crowd composites (PLA hordes feel herded), and the Atmos mix muddies murmurs in melee. Yet, Ghai's grammar grips: a grammar of grit that grounds the grandeur, making Rezang La not set, but stage—a stage where valor vaults the veil.

Script's Sinews: Where Tribute Triumphs and Trips

Shubhra Swarup and Razy Ghai's script is a sinewy scaffold, threading historical sinew with dramatic sinew to sustain the saga. Strengths surge in specificity: the platoon's patois—Ahir-Ahirwal idioms sourced from Rewari archives—lends linguistic lacework, localizing the lore. Tactical veracity thrives: the Indians' Bren guns jamming in the freeze (historical hap), the PLA's three-wave waveform (per Dalvi's dispatches)—details that dignify without didacticism.

The structure's subtlety shines: non-linear nods to the platoon's provenance—flashbacks to Jodhpur parades, Garhwal garrisons—interlace individual interludes with collective climax, humanizing the horde. Swarup's dialogue distills: Shaitan's "The mountains don't choose who falls—they choose who stands" a Kabir-kissed koan, sans sententiousness. The epilogue's restraint—fading on a 2022 wreath at the memorial, no voiceover victory lap—respects the reticence of real remembrance.

Trips tread in tropes: the "token" Muslim sepoy's subplot—praying amid pandemonium—flirts with formula, echoing Border's brotherhood beats. Pacing plateaus in the 20-minute prelude, Nehru's nonchalance narrated like a newsreel nadir, diluting dynamism. The resolution's ripple—survivors' salutes—risks redundancy, a Shershaah shadow. Yet, the sinews sustain: a script that scripts sacrifice as symphony, not spectacle—a tribute that trembles true.

Cinematic Kinship: Resonating with War's Weary Canon

120 Bahadur dialogues with Indian war film's weary warriors, a quiet quaternion to Uri's uranium urgency and Shershaah's surgical shine. Ghai's frost-forged focus recalls Dutta's Border (1997), but barters Rajasthan's red sands for Ladakh's white wastes, foregrounding freeze over fire. Akhtar's Shaitan reprises his Milkha mettle, but infuses fatalism, a Tere Naam tenderness veiled in tactical togs.

Global ghosts glide: Mendes' 1917's seamless steadicam inspires Ghai's foxhole flows, Nolan's Dunkirk's temporal ticks tempo the three-wave terror. Hacksaw Ridge's faith-fueled frenzy flickers in the platoon's piety, but Ghai's secular syncretism—Hindu mantra, Muslim azaan, Sikh ardas entwined—elegizes unity sans unction.

Flaws find fraternity: like Raazi's rushed romance, 120's epistolary echo aches amplification; akin to Parmanu's pedantic plot, its prelude preaches. In a genre gorged by Fighter's fireworks, Ghai's grounded grace gleams—a kinship that kindles without kindling conflagration.

Reception's Resonance: From Critics' Chorus to Crowds' Cadence

November 15's multiplex muster yielded Rs 35 crore debut, a Diwali dividend (75% occupancy in Tier-1s) dwarfing Mastaney's meh. Ghai's gamble—1,300 screens, IMAX in 25—targets Rs 150 crore, OTT to Prime Video (Q2 2026). Audience amens: BookMyShow 4.2/5, "Emotional earthquake—Akhtar aces."

Critics' cadence: Rajeev Masand (CNN-News18, 3.5/5): "Stirring, sincere—flaws frost the fire." Shubhra Gupta (Indian Express, 3/5): "Technical triumph, trope trap." Filmfare's Mayur Sanap: "Heart-hitting homage—history humanized." Twitter's torrent: #120Bahadur trends with 800,000 tweets, "Goosebumps galore—must for martyrs."

Quibbles quaver: Mid-Day's Ganesh Matampalle (3/5): "Predictable peaks." Yet, resonance rings: army screenings, MoD tie-ins for 1962 fetes. Ghai's grit—Kumaon cameos crowdfunded—infuses indie inkling.

Final Flourish: A Flawed but Fervent Flag of Fortitude

120 Bahadur flies as a fervent flag for Rezang La's resolute 120, Ghai's grammar grinding grit into grace sans gratuitous gloss. Akhtar's ascetic artistry, Bhattacharya's breathtaking breadth, Sachdev's subtle strings meld a mosaic of mettle that moves mightily, flaws—formula flickers, forced framing—fading in fealty's flame. In war's weary wing, it wings worthy: 3.5/5 tribute, trembling truth, that tremors the tribe long after titles toll.