A review of Anurag Singh’s ‘Border 2’

Anurag Singh’s Border 2 was Bollywood’s customary Republic Day release. It does exactly what it sets out to do, with heroic entries, patriotic dialogues, and touching moments that tug on your heartstrings. But, the film is not perfect. Despite a strong soundtrack, solid acting performances, and finely executed emotional scenes, the film disappoints, at times, with poor CGI and sub-par action sequences.

Sunny Deol is excellent and is the highlight of Border 2. He drives the film, with his expert delivery of dialogues, and commanding action sequences, displaying incredible fitness for someone of 68 years of age. Varun Dhawan also impresses, which is particularly pleasing given social media’s recent targeting of him. He manages to bring life to a character that is disappointingly written and somewhat limited, and is inspiring in his command of his regiment, proving his worth as a dependable actor. Diljit Dosanjh brings his customary charm and lights up the screen with his comedic delivery, while Ahan Shetty is promising, if not quite as impactful as his co-leads.

A forte of Anuraj Singh’s films are his depiction of emotional sequences and Border 2 follows the same pattern. Anupama Chopra notes that as he does in his film Punjab 1984, in Border 2, Singh ‘distills tears from a few lines of dialogue’. The first half of the film contains many emotional strongpoints: the origins of the soldiers’ friendship, Hoshiar’s emotional backstory, the soldiers’ relationships with the women, to name just a few. The performances of Sonam Bajwa, Medha Rana and Anya Singh bring weight to these scenes and set the stage for the emotional interest of the climax. The standout however is Mona Singh. Her versatility as an actress is highly commendable, but she plays the mother and wife of a soldier with such panache, conveying real empathy and strength with her eyes. The director’s proficiency with emotion also continues into the second half of the story in scenes with children close to Nirmal’s Air Force Base, repeated cuts to a candle lit outside a house in an abandoned village, and in particular, during a scene between two soldiers that get differing news from home.

It is clear that despite large budgets, recent Bollywood films are not quite at the level of their Hollywood counterparts when it comes to depicting these dogfight scenes effectively

Unfortunately, and oddly for a war film, some of Border 2’s action scenes did not deliver. The navy scenes were particularly poor, rendered totally unbelievable by awful CGI. The soldiers on the enemy submarine were characteristically portrayed as arrogant and cocky, leading to their downfall – an overused trope in the film and, unfortunately, a poor storytelling decision. The Air Force scenes were tackled reasonably well, although a case can be made that Bollywood as a whole ought to develop its execution of aerial combat scenes. It is clear that despite large budgets, recent Bollywood films are not quite at the level of their Hollywood counterparts when it comes to depicting these dogfight scenes effectively. The army scenes containing Varun Dhawan’s regiment are strong, and action scenes involving Sunny Deol are very well edited. However, the battle involving Sunny Deol’s Sikh regiment is again marred by the enemy army making foolish decisions.

A potential worry regarding Border 2 could have been its portrayal of the enemy. Designed to make the nation proud of its Motherland, it is impossible to forget how Fighter, for example, Bollywood’s previous Republic Day release, painted its antagonist as explicitly Islamic and Pakistani, plainly targeting a particular group. It was justifiably described by BBC Asian Network’s award-winning Entertainment Broadcaster, Haroon Rashid, as an offensive and insulting piece of propaganda. Singh however, avoids this to an extent; despite a dangerous opening half-an-hour, the film does enough to portray Pakistan as an enemy, without straying into Islamophobia. The Sikh community was shown with more grace than what the Bollywood audience has been accustomed to, and the enemy’s army was not solely defined by Islamic dialogues, as done so in recent films such as Chhaava and the aforementioned Fighter. Perhaps the only unfortunate element of Singh’s illustration of the Pakistani army was their tendency to make the aforementioned countless stupid decisions, and lacked any tactical strategy in battle.

The love songs are beautifully composed, as well as the memorial song that plays as the credits roll

Finally, Border 2’s soundtrack is largely hard-hitting. Despite some disappointments, it contains all of the key ingredients of a war film’s soundtrack. The love songs are beautifully composed, as well as the memorial song that plays as the credits roll. However, the standout is ‘Ghar Kab Aaoge’, a tribute to the prequel’s ‘Sandese Aate Hai’ that takes place while soldiers wait for their letters. Some of Bollywood playback music’s big boys team up for it, and a cameo from Roop Kumar Rathod is a nice touch.

Ultimately, Border 2 achieves its principal aim; sparking a love for the Motherland and spreading nationalistic pride. Its soundtrack and acting performances are strong, especially that of Sunny Deol, and it just about manages to tow the line in its portrayal of Pakistan. The film’s first half is packed with emotional scenes, which sets up its second half nicely, allowing the audience to become more invested in watching the soldiers attempt to make it home to their families. Each hero gets his own entry scene, with Sunny Deol’s the highlight, and there’s a lovely nod to the victims of the first Border film within it too. However, despite this, a war film ultimately must fall short if its action scenes do not look the part. Due to CGI, some scenes come across absurd, and there appears to be a lack of imagination in some cases. Overall, Border 2 is an above average film that tells the story it intends to, but is limited in its success in delivering it.