Ae Watan Mere Watan Review- Glad You Could Make It

Ae Watan Mere Watan
Ae Watan Mere Watan

 Ae Watan Mere Watan– It is strange. But director Kannan  Iyer has directed just one other film in his entire  career. Ek Thi Dayan in 2013  featured Konkona Sen Sharma as a,ha ha,  witch.

Which , if you think  about it, is just the antithesis  of  what Sara Ali Khan plays in Iyer’s second film. Ae Watan Mere Watan   warmly embraces  all the shining trophy-like atrophied  tropes of desh-bhakti films,and yet succeeds in being  a trifle removed from its flag-waving origins.

Sara Ali Khan, so far known for  making faces on camera, withdraws  into a  quietly assured space to play Usha Mehta, a fierce nationalist who  combated  colonialism in her own  way by  manning  an underground radio station propagating the  views and ideology of Mahatma  Gandhi while he, the Mahatma, was jailed .

  Uniquely, the  character Usha Mehta’s   fight for freedom is in-sync with  the actress’ flight into freedom. If Usha Mehta finds her groove, so does Sara Ali Khan. She ‘syncs’  her actorial acumen(for whatever it may be  worth)  deep into her firebrand character, and  emerges with a  triumphant  performance.

 I wish some of the  supporting cast was more impressive. Usha’s two male accompanists in her symphony  of  salvation are  played by Abhay Verma(last seen hamming in  a film called White)  and Sparsh Srivastava(so sincere as  the runaway bride’s harried  groom in Laapata Ladies). Here playing Kaushik and Fahadh  they are both brutally out of their depth, trying not to look too impressed  by their glamorous(deglamorized)  co-star and failing miserably.

Other than Sara,  the one performance that stands out is Emraan Hashmi as  Ram Mohan Lohia. Hashmi  makes a late  entry. But stands his ground  firmly and  persuasively. Sachin Khedekar too is credible(when is he not!) as Usha’s father,a  lackey of the Brits who is torn between his  loyalty  to the  Colonists  and his love for his revolutionary daughter.

  Surprisingly the  Britishers  don’t come  across as growling  caricatures. Alex O’Neill, who is now to Caucasian parts in Hindi cinema what Tom Alter once used to be , is  fairly conclusive as John Lyre who is assigned to crack  Usha  and her team’s whereabouts .

 Post midpoint the  film becomes  a cat-and-mouse chase between Usha Mehta and John Lyre. Director Kannan Iyer has designed the chase  through  darkly-lit gullies and bazaars as a  mix of  tension and  fun, with neither  factor  pushing into each other’s  jurisdiction.Amalendu Chaudhary’s cinematography is organic  to  the impressive periodicity  of the frames.

A  lot  of  the  more cynical elements  watching Ae Watan Mere Watan  would probably demand to know, iss mein naya  kya  hai?  It isn’t  uniqueness that we seek in this experience. It is the  reassurance that  those  who fought  for our freedom didn’t do so in vain.

That assurance comes across  rather  stoutly and sweetly in this watchable  sometimes-mushy  often-engaging patriotic confection.

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