URI: The Surgical Strike — When Noise Replaces Nuance
I’m writing this a bit late. I saw URI: The Surgical Strike with my wife on Valentine’s Day, 2019. As the credits rolled, my first reaction — and the first thing I told her — was simple:
“Revenge begets revenge.”
A couple of days later, Pulwama happened.
The timing was chilling.
That sentence — which felt philosophical inside a movie hall — suddenly felt prophetic. And it also made me reflect more deeply on what the film was trying to do, and more importantly, how it was doing it.
Expectation vs Experience
Truth be told, URI turned out exactly the way I expected it to be. Loud. Aggressive. Steeped in nationalistic jingoism. The emotional pitch was permanently set at “maaro saalon ko” — beat the bloody buggers — with little room left for pause, reflection, or complexity.
Now, let me be clear. I have nothing against patriotism. Or even anger. Nations, like people, have every right to defend themselves.
But cinema — especially cinema that claims seriousness — demands more than chest-thumping.
Where the Film Falters
Many people I know thoroughly enjoyed the film. And that’s fair. It clearly struck a chord with a large audience.
Strangely though, it did not work for me at all.
From a purely cinematic standpoint, the script felt thakela — tired. Predictable. You could see every emotional beat coming from miles away. There were no surprises, no moral dilemmas, no moments that made you lean forward and think.
There were also several goof-ups that pulled me out of the narrative completely. One particularly jarring moment involved an Indian woman spy casually calling the Indian National Security Advisor on her mobile — as though he were sitting next to her in Delhi, free to take her call.
Details matter. Especially in a film that wants to be taken seriously.
Intent vs Impact
The intent of the movie was clear: provoke anger, unify it, and channel it into revenge. In that sense, URI succeeds brilliantly. It knows exactly what buttons to push, when to push them, and how loudly.
But intent alone does not make good cinema.
As a movie buff, I walked out disappointed. Because cinema, at its best, complicates emotions. It doesn’t simplify them into slogans. It questions even as it asserts. It unsettles instead of merely reassuring.
URI chooses certainty over curiosity. Noise over nuance.
And while that may make for rousing slogans and viral dialogues, it left me cold as a film.
Perhaps that, too, is a reaction worth listening to.
Comments