Surgical strikes hit the target

The last time Bollywood made a movie with such sincerity and technical finesse was Farhan Akhtar’s ‘Lakshya’ in 2004. The plot revolves around the now famous Uri Surgical Strikes of 2016. 

The movie opens with the first surgical strike that Indian Army executed in Burma and then moves to the second one which was done in URI, in the process certain characters like Vihaan (Vicky Kaushal) and Seerat (Kirti Kulhari) get their redemption too. The movie ends with soldiers successfully coming back from Uri Surgical Strike.

The movie steers clear from becoming jingoistic or politically motivated and ends up dishing some great emotional moments and thrilling moments in the movie.  It also increases our knowledge about how the whole operation was executed and how there were even some last minute changes in the operation. 

The stories of preparation that this movie will show will move you almost equally as its sharp half hour climax. For example the story of how an intern ends up giving the advantage of a drone to the planners of the strike, a drone which looks like a bird and therefore does not give any scope of suspicion.

The second USP of the movie is its well written story. Sometimes when you make a movie on an incident where the outcome as well as the background is well known and is out there in public domain making engaging content is very tough. 

The director builds moments and small stories around characters which then almost seamlessly merge with the climax of the movie.

The movie also shows us how are soldiers put everything on the line and sometimes are so inhumanly and cruelly killed by forces of terrorism.

There is one more standout feature of URI and that is some of its moments will come and hit you in the gut like a soldier dying just when he thinks he has decimated the terrorist. 

A young girl crying while offering flowers to her dead soldier father. A lot of these moments could have become caricature or loud, but director Aditya Dhar keeps everything under check.