'Ikkis' review: A war film on a peace mission

Madan Lal Khetarpal is in Lahore. He’s attending a college reunion and seeing the house where he grew up, but really, he’s building up courage to visit the place where his son Arun, second lieutenant in the Indian army, breathed his last in the 1971 War. This turned out to be Dharmendra’s final role, and he’s a little too old to offer an incisive performance. Yet, what we get is even better, something pure and unfiltered, an old man using his last fruitful moments to speak of love and understanding. I was incredibly moved, perhaps because my grandfather is also a Madan Lal who studied in Lahore and, like Dharmendra, has been a witness to both undivided Punjab and the entire sweep of independent India.

A month after Dhurandhar, another Hindi film spends most of its time in Pakistan. They couldn’t be more different, though. Dhurandhar wants to start new wars. Ikkis wants to prevent future ones. Dhurandhar wants to win at all costs. Ikkis knows this is no victory at all. Aditya Dhar can barely see Pakistanis as human. Sriram Raghavan asks: what enemy?

Ikkis may not want war but its protagonist certainly does. It’s pretty much the first thing Arun (Agastya Nanda), just turned 21, says in the film. Face smeared with birthday cake, he accepts the congratulations of his commanding officer at military school and asks hopefully: “Sir, ladaai hone waali hai?” (are we going to fight?). To his delight, they are indeed battle-bound, though before that there’s the considerable pleasure of seeing Sikandar Kher’s hardass risaldar knock him down a peg and teach him the ins and outs of tanks. Arun proves adept, though, and is soon placed in charge of one of the tanks rumbling across the border towards Lahore.

Raghavan, writing with longtime collaborators Pooja Ladha Surti and Arijit Biswas, alternates between Arun’s progress in ’71 and his father’s visit to Pakistan three decades later. Though it’s just been two years since the Kargil War, Khetarpal senior charms everyone he meets there—including an angry, disabled veteran played by Deepak Dobriyal. His host in Lahore is another ex-army man, Nisar (Jaideep Ahlawat). Though the exact circumstances are only revealed toward the end, there’s never any doubt that Nisar is linked to Arun’s death, and is looking for a way to tell Khetarpal.

It’s rare to see anyone make a passionate case for pacifism in India today. Ikkis is Raghavan’s most political film simply because of his refusal to use war to drum up anti-Pakistan sentiment. Time and again, the film cuts from a tense bit of action to Khetarpal on his unassuming peace mission. One of these switches comes after Arun’s tank driver tells him “Sab ek jaisa hee hai” (everything looks the same) as they cross the border into Pakistan, which Arun repeats thoughtfully. The film also undercuts the performative patriotism of recent Hindi cinema by focusing, as Lakshya (2004) did, on the army as an institution. Arun’s identity and drive come from his squadron during training, his regiment in the war, and his family’s military history (everything else is a distraction, including a romance with Simar Bhatia’s Kiran). Ikkis allows the Pakistani soldiers the same martial pride: Nisar, commanding an armoured unit in ’71, gives a rousing speech that focuses on the history of their battalion, just as Lieutenant Colonel Hanut Singh (Rahul Dev) plays up the history of the Poona Horse.

There are other touches that suggest Raghavan and his co-writers have been keeping an eye on the divisive provocations of recent Hindi cinema, and don’t approve. Dhurandhar’s cruel use of ‘Allahu Akbar’ had me on alert; I only noticed one in Ikkis. Hanut Singh, in his big speech, says that the blessings of Allah are on his regiment. The film gently pushes aside clichés. Nisar drinks and smokes, has a poster of Sachin Tendulkar next to Imran Khan in his home. Meat dishes in Hindi films have become a way to bash Muslim characters, but Khetarpal is shown enjoying kabab and biryani. Even the two bumbling ISI agents are casually dismissed as officials doing their jobs.

Tanks, lumbering and unsubtle, might not seem like the most cinematic of military weaponry. Yet, I can see why Raghavan would’ve been drawn to them. The film revels in the clang and clunk of these machines, the physicality of loading, firing, reloading, the time taken to swivel and lock on a target. Tanks also suit Ikkis’ romantic, somewhat nostalgic idea of warfare. Fighter planes, no matter which era they belong to, invariably seem like new technology onscreen, whereas tanks always feel like something from the past. This impression is furthered by Anil Mehta’s cinematography and minimal VFX, with few distractingly ‘modern’ shots in the action sequences.

Nanda is wide-eyed and eager as the boy who dreamed of battle, perhaps too much of an overcorrection from the unsmiling patriots of recent war movies. Everyone around him, though, is aptly chosen and on point (I particularly liked Vivaan Shah as an Indian captain, smart in a red scarf, administering mercy killings to injured dogs after battles, a typically sharp Raghavan detail). Ahlawat, coming off a series of flamboyant roles, is soft spoken and very respectful of Dharmendra, which is true of the film in general.

In an increasingly belligerent and hysterical Hindi cinema, I’m not sure there'll be takers for Ikkis' pacifism. Those who watch it for the director might be surprised. There was a lot of talk when the trailer released about how this didn't seem like a Raghavan film, which is to say something acidic, smart and self-aware. It's true that Ikkis, sincere and slightly clunky, is tonally apart from anything he's made. I'm glad he took the risk. Sometimes you just have to speak from the heart and hope someone’s still listening.

'Ikkis' is in theatres.