There
are
so
many
loopholes
in
this
lazily
scribbled
plot,
it
could
be
a
different
movie
and
still
as
crummy,
observes
Sukanya
Verma.
Voiceover
openings
by
a
mortally
wounded
protagonist
sinking
into
air,
water
or
earth
in
poetic
slow
motion
and
sharing
the
events
leading
on
to
that
point
are
such
cliched
imagery,
one
could
predict
the
story
about
to
play
out
on
screen
sitting
in
one’s
living
room.
Mom
Director
Ravi
Udyawar’s
Yudhra
is
a
classic
case
of
style
meets
stereotype.
There’s
oodles
of
slick
action
and
eye
candy
boosting
its
comic-book
visual
pizzazz
but
Sridhar
Raghavan’s
formulaic
screenplay
and
jumbled
storytelling
tells
a
lot
about
the
half-hearted
effort
gone
in
reducing
a
potentially
badass
jaunt
into
a
run-of-the-mill
exercise.
Having
lost
his
folks
in
a
road
accident
while
he
was
still
in
his
mum’s
tummy,
Yudhra
(Siddhant
Chaturvedi)
grows
up
harbouring
anger
issues
as
a
side-effect
of
his
traumatic
birth.
A
good
five
minutes
of
his
childhood
flashback
involves
closeups
of
a
rescued
CGI
lizard
and
the
delinquent
tendencies
it
triggers
when
rubbed
off
the
wrong
way.
For
reasons
best
known
to
Raghavan,
Yudhra
has
foster
daddy
issues
the
size
of
Bachchan
in
Shakti
or
Sharaabi,
which
are
as
confounding
to
us
as
they
are
to
his
floundering
father
figures
(Gajraj
Rao
and
Ram
Kapoor)
in
the
absence
of
any
real
provocation.
Skimming
through
one
chapter
after
another
as
reckless
biker,
court-martialled
cadet
and
undercover
agent
yet
finding
enough
time
to
reconnect
with
his
childhood
sweetheart,
Nikhat
(Malavika
Mohanan/s
awkward
initiation
in
Bollywood’s
vacuous
arm
candy
roles),
Yudhra’s
wayward
journey
stops
not
once
to
make
sense.
There
are
so
many
loopholes
in
this
lazily
scribbled
plot,
it
could
be
a
different
movie
and
still
as
crummy.
Fully
paid
scholarships
to
major
in
a
branch
of
science
where
students
carry
designer
purses
not
backpacks
to
school
is
not
nearly
as
mind
boggling
as
one
of
its
biggest
pre-intervals
twists
that’s
barely
addressed
and
never
confirmed.
Kids
and
their
doll
games
convey
more
coherence
than
the
erratic
manner
Yudhra‘s
characters
are
written
and
pitted
against
each
other.
Like
‘cops
won’t
be
a
problem
in
Portugal’,
a
drug
lord
tells
his
son
before
directing
him
to
catch
the
first
flight
and
gatecrash
Yudhra
and
Nikhat’s
canoodling
session
by
the
beach.
He’s
right.
Even
after
so
much
destruction,
gun
firing,
bloodshed,
locals
turning
casualty,
no
cop
shows
up.
Back
in
India
too,
things
are
dedicatedly
slack.
Ambulances
arrive
without
as
much
a
peep
but
police
vans
are
nowhere
to
be
found.
Wouldn’t
be
that
much
of
a
big
deal
if
this
movie
didn’t
have
cops
as
key
protagonists.
And
no
matter
how
kinetic
the
action
is,
there’s
no
real
emotion
fuelling
the
violence.
Brash
for
the
heck
of
it,
Yudhra’s
temper
issues
are
long
forgotten
as
he
courts
trouble
in
a
Pune
prison
that
looks
like
Alcatraz
from
the
outside
and
Rajiv
Rai’s
imagination
inside.
Aiming
for
a
cross
between
Sanjay
Dutt’s
bad
boy
charisma
and
Suniel
Shetty’s
raw
rage,
the
machismo
put
forth
by
Siddhant
in
and
as
Yudhra
is
all
too
familiar
and
’90s
in
its
sensibility.
Except
he’s
played
the
cocky
guy
so
many
times
now,
the
characterisation
needed
a
lot
more
than
licking
lollipops
to
give
it
an
edge.
Ditto
for
the
villains
Firoz
(Raj
Arun)
and
Shafiq
(Raghav
Juval).
Whatever
little
attraction
their
menace
holds
is
purely
surface
level.
Raj
Arun’s
quiet
ferocity
is
a
mood
waiting
to
have
its
moment
while
Raghav
Juval’s
choreographer
skills
are
happy
to
burn
the
dance
floor
in
killer
moves
and
kitschy
styling.
The
Kill
baddie
is
the
only
one
to
have
figured
out
the
key
to
Yudhra‘s
sleek
nonsense
and
letting
his
hair
down
while
at
it.
As
drug
kingpins,
Firoz
and
his
son
Shafiq
have
little
to
offer
by
way
of
purpose.
Rather,
it
is
one’s
quirks
and
another’s
queerness
that
lend
them
some
semblance
of
character.
Typical,
isn’t
it?
Glamorising
hypermasculinity
to
the
hilt
while
disguising
its
innate
Islamophobic
and
homophobic
mindsets
where
portraying
those
on
the
fringes
as
troublemakers
or
tyrants
is
usually
the
norm.
What
would
be
truly
subversive
is
when
a
gay
action
hero
stands
up
to
a
straight
majority
of
offenders
and
takes
forward
the
feverish
fervour
of
the
action
genre
to
diverse,
defiant
places.
Yudhra
Review
Rediff
Rating:
