Border 2

Till date, ‘Border’, directed and produced by JP Dutta — never mind certain misgivings — is considered a significant war film. So when Dutta decided to produce its sequel 27 years later in 2024, the new captain of the film, director Anurag Singh, knew he had to tap into the same emotion which made ‘Border’ a blockbuster. Apart from Sunny Deol as the connecting thread, ‘Border 2’ thrives on music, emotions and of course melodrama. Anurag possibly couldn’t resist Sunny Bhaji’s “dhai kilo ka haath” manifesting with full force. So, Sunny Deol’s Lt Col Fateh Singh Kaler gets plenty of one-to-one combat scenes and some bombastic dialogues too, besides a heartrending track.

1971 के भारत-पाक युद्ध में इतने सारे मोर्चों पर इतनी सारी लड़ाइयां लड़ी गई थीं कि हमारे फिल्मकार चाहें तो हर साल उन पर फिल्में बना सकते हैं। 13 जून, 1997 को आई जे.पी. दत्ता की ‘बॉर्डर’ उस युद्ध की लोंगेवाला की लड़ाई पर थी तो पिछले दिनों आई श्रीराम राघवन की ‘इक्कीस’ बसंतर की लड़ाई पर। अब आई ‘बॉडर 2’ को बसंतर, शक्करगढ़, मनव्वर तवी, पुंछ, ऑपरेशन चंगेज़, आई.एन.एस. खुखरी जैसे कई मोर्चों को मिला-जुला कर मसालेदार बनाने की कोशिश की गई है। यानी ‘बॉर्डर 2’ पिछली वाली ‘बॉर्डर’ का सीक्वेल नहीं है बल्कि यह उसी नाम वाली एक और फिल्म है जिसमें ‘बॉर्डर’ का फ्लेवर, उसकी खुशबू, उसकी झलक डाली गई है।

Mounted on a grand scale but filmed largely in and around real military locations and installations, Border 2 is a longer, brighter, and more ballistic and variegated replica of the original war drama released in 1997. In tone and texture, however, it isn’t the same. The surface sheen of Border 2 reflects the significant distance that Mumbai’s commercial cinema has travelled in terms of filmmaking technique in the 28-year interregnum. It is bolder and louder than Border could ever have been given the times in which it was envisaged and executed.

As Dhurandhar continues to tell cinegoers that Pakistan’s deep state views Hindus as pushovers, Border 2 arrives to underscore that the 1971 War stemmed from the neighbour’s belief that Indians are meek until confronted by Sunny Deol on the western front.

J P Dutta’s 1997 Border was equal parts a war film and a Bollywood film, with strong doses of action and emotion. Its strength came from Dutta’s penchant for patriotic cinema, and of course the elusive thing that no filmmaker knows beforehand — the fulsome embrace of the audience. Despite its occasional spurt of anti-Pakistan rhetoric, and the constant conflation of Ma and Dharti Ma, the original Border remains one of the most complete war films that Hindi cinema has made, and its musical sandese still echo in our movie memories.

In the last couple of years, the roster of Hindi cinema has been clogged with certain kinds of narratives and mostly with one kind of event: war. There has been a proliferation of war films as their rhetoric — identifying the nemesis as an “enemy”, using dialogues filled with allegories of battles — leaks into the grammar of regular dramas. It was about time that JP Dutta’s Border (1997), the original war-cry of a film centred firmly around Indian soldiers, would be reprised, and Border 2 is that.

It’s rare to see Hindi cinema offer up this neat a contrast. Three weeks ago, Sriram Raghavan’s Ikkis, a film on the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War, released in theatres. This weekend, Anurag Singh’s Border 2, also set during the 1971 War, opens in time for Republic Day. Ikkis is an interrogation of the modern Hindi war film, cheerfully swatting away stereotypes. Border 2, on the other hand, throws itself frequently on the live grenade of cliché, a martyr’s death for original thinking every scene.