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SHERDIL MOVIE REVIEW - The Pakistan "Top Gun"

Pak-Canuck

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So just caught this last night and felt that I must post something here. I was waiting for these two PAF movies (Parvaaz hai Junoon and Sherdil) to come out for several months. So here it is, P.S I have warned in the following where the spoilers are about to start/end, so don't read those parts if you still have not seen the movie:

1) Plot - Acting

The plot was ok, what you would expect i.e a person joining the airforce, the struggles he faces etc. There is a LOT in the middle that could have easily been cut out (more on that later), but the movie could have easily been just under 2 hrs instead of 2.5 hrs. The acting/performances and line-deliveries was unfortunately very sub-par and cheesy,

Parvaaz Hai Junoon was much better in this regard, had a much better cast, storyline, plot and acting performance, so much so that actually saw some people cry in the theater in the end.

2) Soundtrack

Again, was ok. They had a couple of decent dance tracks, but again NOTHING compared to the much superior Parvaaz Hai Junoon soundtrack (all of it which was awesome).

3) Fighter-plane-action scenes

Alright here is where the movie largely differs from PHJ. WOOOOOOOOOW, just wow. The dogfight scenes in this movie are just simply out of this world, and worth the price of admission alone. Yes a lot of it was CGI but here CGI was PERFECTLY used, almost never did any of it seem fake and were all heart-stopping to watch. Dare I say, the fight scenes were even more enjoyable than Top Gun! Has to be watched in theaters, small screens will not do justice to this fight scenes. In this category, Sherdil totally kicks PHJ's butt.

SPOILER ALERT:

There are 3 dogfight scenes in total, each more than 3-4 minutes, so that's 10 times more dogfight action than we saw in PHJ. The 1965 war opening dogfight was a treat to watch as well, the Pakistani F-86's and the Indian Gnat's looked very real. The JF-17 was BEAUTIFULLY shown taking on the Mirage 2000's in the 2nd and final dogfights and was just pure fun!

4) What could have been improved

SPOILER ALERT:

Again like I said before, the first half of the movie was decent, halfway through they decide to send the PAF pilot to attend the International Flight School in UAE to train with other fighter pilots from across the world in a Top-Gun style competition. Here he encounters the Indian pilot who got away in an earlier dogfight, where they are hostile to each other at first and then become good friends. Then they are shown to take on gangsters from dubai with martial arts and stuff and romancing two girls before going back to their countries. This whole RIDICULOUS sub-plot could have been done away with, it was about 30-40 min of idiocy, especially since they try hard to make the indian character likeable and make us want him to get the girl he is pursuing and then only in the end they make him look like a backstabbing snake and an idiot with him being shot down in the end and calling his girlfriend for help (a scene which they were trying to show as serious but ends up looking funny). They could have seriously just cut all this out and the movie would have been way more enjoyable.

I can understand if they were trying to show how the pilots can be friends and outside their countries and respecting each other etc and must be compelled to fight again once they return, but seriously could have been better executed. And what's worse is that they show ZERO training and competition with the jetfighters during this "International Flight School competition". Totally useless.

Also another thing Pak films really have to do is resolve the secondary character storylines and not just the primary ones, something PHJ was also guilty of. For example here they develop a likeable character, a Pakistani sikh who joins the PAF and provides comedic relief for more than half the movie, but then is nowhere to be seen during the final battle and afterwards.

SPOILER ALERT ENDS


So overall, definitely worth watching, but yes obviously Pakistani cinema is nowhere near perfect right now, but you learn and improve as you go along. And they will only improve if we all go watch it in theaters and thus financially help the industry. But take my word for it, just watching the dogfight scenes are WORTH the ticket price and the 2.5 hour watch time.

P.S me and my friends all agreed, if they had combined the storyline, cast, acting and soundtrack of Parvaaz Hai Junoon with all the aerial footage and dogfights of Sherdil, you would have the BEST EVER fighter-plane air force movie ever made, period!!!
 
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