Tejas Review: An Air Combat Thriller Has Never Been So Frustratingly Airy-Fairy

When in doubt, think about the nation - that is the mantra that Tejas, written and directed by Sarvesh Mewara and produced by Ronnie Screwvala's RSVP Movies, harps upon. This is a film that religiously adheres to that axiom. It is always in doubt and it never lets the nation slip out of its thoughts.

But try as hard as it may, Tejas comes a complete cropper - it is a dead-on-arrival cinematic consignment that does no justice at all to the nation, the Air Force or the medium. It is an insufferably bland thriller that believes that peddling patriotism can help it paper over its pockmarks.

Toplined by a completely out of her depth Kangana Ranaut in the role of an Indian Air Force pilot who thrives on dangerous missions and empty platitudes, Tejas is a precariously low-flying vehicle that never gathers any velocity. It lurches from one crashlanding to another.

It must have taken some doing for the makers to turn an aviation actioner into such a stilted, insipid affair. The excruciatingly vacuous writing - the lines that the characters spout are right out of a how-real-people-should-not-speak handbook, is aggravated manifold by the terribly sloppy acting all around.

Ranaut's eponymous character is a 'rockstar' in the guise of a fighter pilot who flies the single-engine light combat aircraft that shares her name. Well, well, Tejas piloting a Tejas in a mission called Tejas in a film titled Tejas - how dramatic!

The film has a scene in which the appeal of a popstar (Varun Mitra, who shows up for a bit, is projected as the heroine's romantic interest and then is seen no more because the lady he wishes to woo has far more important things on her mind) is eclipsed by the aura that surrounds Wing Commander Tejas Gill (Ranaut). She is mobbed by autograph-hunting girls who look right through the preening crooner.

That, in a metafictional sense, is the kind of film Tejas is. Nobody is allowed to steal the heroine's thunder here. This is a Kangana Ranaut show all the way and that is the film's biggest undoing. There isn't a single fleeting moment - forget an entire sequence - in Tejas in which the lead performer is convincing.

Ranaut was infinitely better as Rani Lakshmibai (in Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi) than she is as an intrepid Air Force pilot. That, as is obvious, is saying a lot. The character she plays, all spunk and no substance, has a single dimension. She knows no doubts.

From her days in the Air Force academy to the risky mission she undertakes in order to save an Indian spy held hostage in Mir Ali town in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Tejas Gill is a fount of uncommon intelligence and unshakeable confidence. So, the character has no arc to speak of. She begins where she ends.

Tejas Gill's supportive parents pop up in a few scenes but the two-hour film has no space for the story of the protagonist's growing up years. This ain't no Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl. All that Tejas lets on is that the girl made up her mind about becoming a fighter pilot when Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee named India's fighter aircraft Tejas.

The female-led film touches upon the gender theme all right, but only cursorily. The men take a backseat as two girls lead the charge in the climactic sequences. That is the point that the film tries to make with all its might but muffs up its lines.

Tejas plunges straight into a sortie that Tejas makes in the company of Afiya (Anshul Chauhan, the only member of the cast who comes anywhere making an impression) to rescue an Air Force officer whose plane has crashed in the sea and his body has washed up on a prohibited island inhabited by the protected Sentinelese tribe.

Tejas refuses to back off despite orders from higher-ups and pulls off a daring rescue act, shaking off an attack by the tribals in the process. She is struck by arrows. But that is no more than a professional hazard that is shrugged off without much ado.

For their bold and selfless effort, she and Afiya - the name might ring a bell but her religious identity is fiercely guarded - face an internal inquiry. But since it is Kangana Ranaut who is in the line of fire, you know that she is going to sail through unscathed.

Yes, that is the level at which Tejas flies. Such are the flights of fancy that the exasperatingly listless film indulges in that barely 30 minutes in, it turns into a bit of a slog that is tough to sit through. Somebody says, Hum uddte uddte jaayenge, desh ke kaam aayenge. The protagonist takes that to heart. There is no stopping her from here on.

As Tejas sits at the controls of her first solo trial sortie, the instructor asks her what she can see. The runway, she replies. Look harder, the man says. The lady pauses and pipes up: I can see the road that will help me serve the nation. Spot on! She is ready for bigger things.

The film, unfortunately, never is. It crams in everything that you would expect from a drama of this nature. In 2008 Mumbai, terrorists interrupt a cosy family dinner. A shrieking, smirking mastermind harboured by Pakistan wants to ensure the barbadi of Hindustan.

Also look out for a ferocious executioner nicknamed Sar Qalam (meaning the act of decapitation) because of his proficiency at slitting the throats of hostages. But not to worry, the enemy soldiers that the protagonist has to deal with are a bunch of bumbling, easy-to-hoodwink men.

And for good measure, there is a spanking new temple that faces the threat of an attack from three jihadists who sneak in to sabotage the inauguration of the grand edifice.

Logic is lost in the deafening din of the combat aircraft. Tejas is a film that flies into rough weather from the word go and never manages to find a way out of it. An air combat thriller has never been so frustratingly airy-fairy.