Yodha: Sidharth Malhotra's Impressive Hijack Drama Swings Left-Right-Left

IN the Sidharth Malhotra-starrer Yodha, the male protagonist looks at his miffed wife walking away and utters the iconic Shah Rukh Khan catchphrase from the ‘90s: “palat” (turn). When the couple reconcile after a brief period of estrangement, their chosen words of affection hark to another dialogue from Khan’s filmography: “yeh joke tha…I don’t like jokes.” It makes sense. Yodha has been produced by Karan Johar, the man behind some of these noted lines and responsible for bankrolling outings which thrive on Shah Rukh Khan hattips. But the inspiration of this film lies in another Khan.

Directed by Sagar Ambre and Pushkar Ojha (Ambre has been credited with the writing), Yodha shares much with Salman Khan’s last release, Tiger 3 — the inflated heroism, the indefatigable bullishness of the central character and even his arc that ranges from being framed as a traitor to emerging as a national hero. Much like Khan’s rendition of Tiger, the Indian spy entrusted with protecting the country, Malhotra plays Yodha, a special task force officer, as a one-man army. He possesses both muscular and mental rigour. He can swim at the speed of light; fight off terrorists during a flight; and detach, divorce and die for the sake of the nation.

But the parallels do not end here. In fact, this is merely where they begin. Yodha and Tiger 3 intersect at the distinct nature of their progressive politics which is couched in conservatism. Both films share an inclusive outlook (India-Pakistan peace brokering comprises a major plot point) and have their climax set in Pakistan. Both depart from the sea of propagandist films floating in the Hindi film stratosphere at the moment; both insist that the conflict between the neighbouring countries is manufactured by self-serving religious extremists and, in conclusion, underline the possibility of peace as long as one nation has a slightly upper-hand: India. Yodha borrows its pacifying politics from the Yash Raj spy film, amplifies it and lends a unique positioning that feels both left and right.

But first, there was a plane.

Yodha centers on Arun Katyal (Malhotra), a uniformed officer with complete disregard for orders. His father (Ronit Roy) had started the special combative force (‘Yodha’) for enhancing national security and Arun continued the legacy by enlisting in it. The film opens in 2001 at the India-Bangladesh border where Arun single-handedly rescues the Indians held hostage. His luck runs out later when the flight he is on is hijacked by Pakistani terrorists. He was there to protect a famous nuclear scientist. What follows is a physical altercation, covert signals sent by Arun to his colleagues hiding in the dark for counter-attack, failed negotiations by the Indian government, and the flight taking off with him falling to the ground — defeated. The scientist is sent back dead, Yodha is dismantled, and Arun is suspended.

Things move fast from hereon. Arun is consumed by self-pity, his condition made worse by the fact that the testimonial by his wife Priyamvada Katyal (Raashii Khanna), who was conducting the negotiations on behalf of the government, is used against him. Timelines are skipped, she files for a divorce, and a couple more years pass. Nokia phones give way to Blackberry, and Arun, now an air commando, finds himself on another hijacked flight. His troubled past of warring with the system makes him the convenient suspect. The plane, full of civilians, takes a turn for Islamabad where peace negotiations are taking place between India and Pakistan. The narrative proceedings hinge on two questions: Is Yodha the story of a fallen hero out to avenge the system that wronged him? Or, is it about an officer being framed for standing up to the system?

The design of the central conflict sheds light on another major, and frankly the more definite inspiration of Yodha: Siddharth Anand. The filmmaker looms large in this hijack drama, not least because both Ambre and Ojha have worked on Anand’s 2023 film, Pathaan (Ojha was part of War as well). Yodha is imbued with a particular style that has become synonymous with Anand.

The action sequences, a large chunk of which unfold in the closed setting of a flight, are choreographed and executed with a certain finesse. There is a one-shot scene early on, executed with an impressive kinetic verve and ably shouldered by Malhotra. The hero clutches onto whatever is tricoloured while drawing the line at being blindly jingoistic (no trash talk about Pakistan). Even the breakneck pace of the narrative, where illogical but fun twists arrive one after another, and each villain turns out to be more hammy and extra than the previous one, feel Anandesque. My favourite is a terrorist patting the head of a Prime Minister (dubbed as ‘Head of the State’) with an affection one reserves for a child.

These comparisons are not meant to dilute Yodha, a film I believe can be best enjoyed if one looks past the ingenuity it strives for and embraces the goofiness it offers. For, the novelty is shaky. The hijack situation puts forth more questions than answers. There are logical loopholes aplenty and the many ways in which a plane defies all laws of physics, chemistry and biology feature as number one in the list. Even when it flips, not one person throws up. Is motion sickness a 2020 discovery? 

There is also the tendency of the film to humanise the people of Pakistan but still portray them as beings incapable of putting up a fight. Even Maneesh Sharma’s Tiger 3 had a condescending tone but it was offset by the presence of a competent Pakistani spy, Zoya (Katrina Kaif). Yodha turns out to be more patronising, with Arun landing in Pakistan and taking on everyone, with not one skilled officer from the country in sight. It is not wholly incidental that Ambre was a script supervisor on Aditya Dhar’s 2019 craftily done propaganda film, Uri: The Surgical Strike.

The veering politics of Yodha (like a scattered movement of a hijacked plane) comes across as more unassertive than nuanced. There are many ways to look at it — a cop-out in the present climate, a centrist standpoint or a negotiation to be nationalistic with the beating heart of a patriot. It is not necessarily a bad thing. We get a scene where a fallen officer holds the government responsible for a security failure. We also witness Malhotra getting more assured as an action hero, content with moving his muscles and not his face. Times are bad, so we’ll take the bargain.

The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of OTTplay. The author is solely responsible for any claims arising out of the content of this column.