Aditya Roy Kapoor proves a fine action hero in Om

For reasons best known to the censor board the title of Om: The Battle Within was changed to Rashtra Kavach Om just two weeks before release We all know what Shakespeare said about a rose by any other name. The same goes for Om… sweet Om! You can prefix or tag it with anything, it still gives off a sense of power and restoration as the hero seeks to redeem his father’s reputation.

Rashtra Kavach Om opens with a high-octane action sequence on board a ship. The film’s hero Om Rathod, played by Aditya Roy Kapur demonstrates an agility that the plot seems to try hard to match. This is a recklessly swift-shifting plot. The writers Raj Saluja and Niket Pandey keep the proceedings on high alert even at the cost of coherence. The editor Kamlesh Parui seems to have been instructed to keep the audiences’ curiosity on wrecked alert.

I have rarely seen a film more anxious to keep ahead of the audiences’ expectations. The material that director Kapil Verma has shot, a blend of The Bourne Identity and sundry other spy thrillers, is cut with the desperate urgency of the nasbandi driving during the Emergency. The director is wired to keep the flow of the narrative furiously apace.

You know those games that high school kids play at parties where any sign of slackening means expulsion? Rashtra Kavach Om is the celluloid equivalent of the games students play when pressed against the wall to be cool. However, being cool while the temperature rises all around is a bit like performing gymnastics at a lovers’ ball.

You can’t mix ‘n’ match the temperamental high school teen dream with a high-octane Arnold Schwarzenegger styled action film. Try explaining that to the excitable team behind this actioner!

Aditya Roy Kapur displays an incommensurate faith in the material. He gives all of himself to the action scenes, even ripping off his shirt for the fifteen-minute climactic conflagration, a la Salman Khan in Dabangg . Rashtra Kavach Om is devoid of the self-deprecating humour of Salman’s Dabangg or the action films that Dharmendra did in the past like Sholay , Pratigya and Patthar Aur Payal where the stunts were fastened into the business of funny.

Aditya Roy Kapur is dead serious in this long battle to prove that his screen-father Jackie Shroff is not a desh drohi. Which is easier said than drummed. The action scenes are interesting, more so than the amnesiac drama where the hero forgets selectively.

Coincidentally, Madhavan too is out on a similar mission in this week’s other far more sincere film. Kapur’s spry athletic moves are used to advantage in a script that seems to constantly seek its own approval. The lead actor also has some interesting moments with his screen-father Ashutosh Rana who is so consistently good, our cinema doesn’t know what to do with him

Rana’s death signals the film’s downward roll down the hill at an unstoppable speed. On the plus side, there is little room here for romancing or any of the other scriptural imbalances that plague mainstream film. No romantic song for Kapur and his leading Sanjana Sanghi. And that is a blessing since the couple looks decidedly mismatched.

It’s time to reorganize and revamp the commercial cinema’s eco-system. Rashtra Kavach Om is a gladdening step in the right direction. But in getting there it sidesteps basic coherence. The fancy editing only makes things worse.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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