Director: Shiv Rawail
Actors: Alia Bhatt, Sharvari
Rating: 1.5 stars
Alpha opens with Anil Kapoor, 69, hero of Beta (1992). Only, the setting is 1999. And I bet, you can’t tell the difference.
The rest of the film flash-forwards to the present, circa 2026. Anil’s probably the only actor who has to put on make-up to look his own age!
The guy standing next to him, in that scene, Bobby Deol, is equally like single-malt, aged in an oak barrel — getting better with time. Notice that shot with the camera zooming-in to his nostrils, with the bearded face covering the full screen —genuine alpha!
But this film, Alpha, is supposed to be centred on a dare-devil, female spy, i.e. Alia Bhatt. What’re these two gents as military men doing in it? Anil plays Alia’s biological dad, while Bobby’s her foster father.
The latter, she grew up with. The former, she’s never seen. Bobby, the bodybuilder, has raised her like a lab-rat — inside a warehouse in Thar Desert. Unsure how she’s developed any social/communication skills.
This girl was born with a specific serum, invented by an Indian scientist (Dibyendu Bhattacharya), that gives you special powers — physical agility, strong hearing skills, holding breath for long, organs that repair themselves, etc. These don’t seem super-powers, still. Alpha has been named after this serum!
For the most part, the only way to make sense of this picture is as a female, super-hero origin-story — hence, more Black Widow, even Lara Croft than La Femme Nikita, if you may. She’s a trained psycho — blindly, serially killing, on Lord Bobby’s instructions. Some penny’s dropped. She’s not gonna do that anymore.
Only, that the high stakes for the huge-budget actioner that follow, naturally, concern the Indian Army. And you feel like they’re making more of a mazaak/mockery of the military, instead.
Alpha is also the elite commando team that Lord Bobby wishes to establish, with young men, injected with the said serum. What a masterstroke, no? The only wars I hear of are drones fighting drones.
The serum has side-effects. You can pop it, without warning. Lives have been lost. Cadets got administered drugs without trial. It’s been discontinued since. Lord Bobby got demoted from Colonel to Lt Colonel — wow!
Alpha belongs to Yash Raj Films’ Spy Universe (Tiger, Pathaan, War). Yes, there’s decidedly a Dhurandhar effect to this Bollywood spy-genre. Which, besides thumping music, was the fact of diving deep into actual lives and locations (Lyaari, in that case) to mine mad action that still takes a realistic story forward.
In that regard, at best, Alpha seems more the usual, over-designed, delulu drama about India and Pakistan as superpowers, standing in for US-USSR during Cold War — a scientist, who will win the covert operation, and the RAW chief (Anil Kapoor), who never flies commercial, and has a godown of ammo in his Himalayan home.
That villa is called Janaki Kutir. Bobby calls Alia, “Soldier.” I was enjoying these Juhu jokes!
There’s a Dhurandhar effect to this script too. But it’ll be a severe spoiler to say it. I don’t know if my fellow viewer, Subbu (from Hyderabad), stayed back to see it. We were the only two people in the hall, on the first day, first show, with me behind the front row.
Maybe, it’s the Mumbai monsoons, or that the core-audience of this genre are masses, who mainly like to see men indulging in cathartic, hypermasculine mania. That too, certain men, with a magnetic pull and an X-factor, namely, stars.
There are, in fact, two women kicking ass in this pic. Sharvari plays the other. Her character was also born with the said serum.
God knows, they must’ve worked their butts off for the carefully choreographed combat sequences. Even if none of the menace, or resilience, really shows. Sharvari’s character, however, grew up abroad; fully socialised, happy life. If I was her, I’d stay out of this nonsense.
Apart from a video game, starring Sharvari, Alia, which could be fun — what if Alpha was a spoof of the spy genre that was equally common in Hollywood, once upon a time. As in the sorts of Naked Gun, Austen Powers… Of course, the film takes itself too seriously.
Still, consider the scene, where the two super-heroines are inside a monastery. They meet a monk in there. An army attacks this home of peace.
“Don’t worry, we’ll keep you safe,” the heroines tell the monk as they go around crushing the solid soldiers, one by one. The monk, in his hoodie, continues with his mumbo-jumbo over a mandala.
Soon as he reveals his face to the attackers, they run, “Bhaago, yeh Kabir hai!” As in Kabir from the equally jhantu War 2. Or, actually, no. Scratch that. Alpha is superior.
Scientist, serum, sexy ladies, stunts… It would sound even better on a narration, with the writers feeling so kicked in a self-aware sorta way that I can almost hear them slapping each other’s backs, for having cracked such a cleaver script.
And, hey, at least, they tried. The story is credited to Uday Chopra. Honestly, he must reconsider acting. And whatever serum has inspired this imagination — pass on some. Could use it to enjoy this pic way better. Seriously.