Border (1997)

hyped garbage

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Its 1997 movie, story about Indian Army at Pakistan border defending the country. A great story with number of beautiful songs.

If you have seen Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers, and believe that a war movie has to transcend beyond phony emotions, then this movie will be a huge disappointment for you. Although war movies are rare in Indian movie industry, ‘Border’ simply dramatizes war taking it far away from reality, lacking basic research, leveraging no technical advancements in sound editing or cinematography that could have significantly enhanced the combat scenes. Heroism or leadership is not a style but is in a person’s character is one message that this movie fails to get across. So what is left is a 3 hours of songs, dances and make-believe camaraderie at the backdrop of a fancy war. Having said that, it still is a daring attempt in Bollywood to make a war movie, but this movie simply underlines how much movie making in India has still to evolve!

Border is about a small military confrontation between India and Pakistan. The facts have been mutilated and heroes have been made larger then life. It was the Indian air force that made a real difference to the outcome. In the movie it is a handful of soldiers that do the job. Even the cook has to take up arms. Apart from an incorrect plot there is hopeless acting and stupid stunts. Take for example a soldier who carries an anti tank mine to a tank after being shot around 20 times all over the body. You can count on more such scenes in the movie. The movie was a big hit in India and the director won acclaims for his direction. Every major characters has a love life and the romance side of their stories makes the movie agonizingly long. Aside from all this junk the movie has some brilliant songs exploring the soldiers life far from his family. "Sandeshe aaten hain" is about soldiers waiting for a message from home, letters ask them . "Jaaten hue lamhon" is about a soldier asking the time to stop because he wants to spend a little more time with his newly wed wife.

Anti-Pakistani and jingoistic drivel which works only in building patriotism in Indians. (I guess if Americans can be patriotic by putting down Russians and Arabs all the time, Indians should have the same rights.) Dutta knew he sank to offensive commercial levels and will next try and redeem himself with the cross-border love story, Refugee.Redeeming factors of Border are beautiful tunes thanks to Anu Malik and Javed Akhtar. Buy the music album and skip the film.