Movie Runway 34: Ajay Devgn Gives a New Bollywood Treat in a Fairly Gripping Drama!

In all my Bollywood, read Hindi movies, viewing experience this should be the first movie with a serious attempt to deal with an air disaster or a possible air disaster, a genre that the commercial Hindi films never really tried to explore barring a few on plane hijack, most prominently the intense drama of Neerja (2016) based on a real-life brave air hostess. The movie Runway 34, also loosely based on true incidents and released on the occasion of Eid in April-end this year, tells the story of a flight from Dubai to Cochin that entered the vortex of a raging cyclone nearly crash-landing in the Trivandrum airport with 150 passengers on board, and then followed by the grueling investigation into the near-crash. The first half of the film dwells entirely on the flight starting at the wee hours from Dubai and is a gripping saga of what happened on its course from the takeoff onward, told with the required details and intensity that are always missing in most commercial Bollywood movies. However, as per some traditionally cherished ingredients of a typical Hindi movie we get treated with a background song during the climax of the flight landing, instead of making it a memorable one with the main pilot Captain Vikrant Khanna (Ajay Devgn) steering the plane to a landing on his chosen Runway-34, blindfolded and with an unlit cigarette on his lips. There are bound to be more of the kind as we move on; but the first half indeed makes this movie immensely watchable.

 

Ajay Devgn, one of the most intense and powerhouse actors of Bollywood, also makes his first successful film as a director after two pathetic attempts in the past. His firm, Ajay Devgn FFilms, is also the producer of this film. With an admired and adored superstar hero at the helm of all possible affairs of this movie, particularly as the Captain in the cockpit too, we’re bound to confront more and more of the cherished values rampant in a big Bollywood production. However, despite this overpowering fact in fiction, the likes of the superstar of the millennium, Amitabh Bachchan, were strictly kept under wraps, perhaps as a surprise package for the viewers, as he appears out of nowhere and takes full charge of the second half. Before we go to him let’s take note of the ‘cherished values’ we’ve talked about.

 

Rated as one of the best pilots of the country who is admired as respected as a hero by all in the airline industry, Vikrant Khanna seems to be doing all the wrongs things, right from the beginning. In the night before his flight he goes to a party to join a friend, does all kinds of mischief and hardly sleeps during the night; he lies to his doting wife Sumaira (played by Akanksha Singh) in Cochin with their daughter’s birthday coming up the next day; he behaves rather arrogantly with his co-pilot Tanya Albuquerque (played by Rakul Preet Singh) and shows off disdainfully during the pre-flight briefing; he tries to smoke everywhere possible, but scoffs with a refrain ‘Haven’t lighted it yet, right?’ to the reminders in the no-smoking zones; during the flight, when alerted of inclement weather in Cochin, Vikrant ignores Tanya’s suggestion of diverting to Bangalore and makes the near-fatal mistake of trying to land in the mouth of the cyclone in Trivandrum. Nonetheless, Vikrant is played by none other than Ajay Devgn, and therefore, despite all the shortcomings he must emerge as a hero at the end. This brings us to the second half and to Amitabh Bachchan.  

 

In the role of a dedicated air-accident investigator Narayan Vedant, Amitabh Bachchan was expected to put in more intensity and drama into the story; but unfortunately, despite being the superstar of the millennium and a craze for character roles since 2000 he fails to uplift the movie. This has several reasons: firstly, he’s grilling Vikrant, played by none other than the superhero Ajay Devgn, and naturally Vikrant has to emerge as the ultimate hero here too, for the obvious need of having the empathy of the viewers; secondly, thanks to the first reason, the most crucial details like the advice of the co-pilot are brushed under the carpet, with the supposedly honest-dedicated investigator not caring a damn for those links; thirdly, his techniques seem to be more like a cunning lawyer in a normal courtroom, instead of being a technically-proficient air-accident professional; and the owner of Vikrant’s airliner, Nishant Suri (played by Boman Irani) is shown to be only indulging in clichés. As a result, the second half of an otherwise gripping drama falls flat and disappoints the audience sorely.

 

I don’t want to give spoilers’ alert here and so cannot disclose the intricate details involved in the final emergence of Vikrant as the ultimate hero. Unfortunately, all these have cost the movie dearly as it’s flopped at the box-office, failing to recover even half of its budget. Such ambitious, sincere and new-genre movies should never fail like this. It’s said that the movie is inspired by, naturally enough for a new Bollywood genre experiment, by several Hollywood movies on air disasters. However, if it’s inspired it should be inspired enough to not indulge in the traditional Hindishingredients and do a real inspired job. Rakul Preet Singh and Boman Irani have done very well in the limited roles assigned to them. Amitabh Bachchan too seems to have suffered from the limitations of the role assigned. And of course, not to forget at all, Ajay Devgn delivers a powerhouse performance yet again to make the movie watchable, even if it amounts to only because of him.