A maverick Hrithik Roshan and team are out for blood for Pulwama Attack- Cinema express

The trailer of Hrithik Roshan, Deepika Padukone and Anil Kapoor starrer aerial-actioner Fighter was released on Monday. Directed by Siddharth Anand, the film also features Karan Singh Grover and Akshay Oberoi.

The trailer opens with a shot of a fighter plane firing up for take-off. We are introduced to the maverick Shamsher Singh Pathania aka “Patty” (Hrithik Roshan). He is part of “Air Dragons”, a quick response team of the Indian Air Force, headed by Captain Rakesh Jai Singh aka “Rocky”. The team also includes Squadron leaders Minal Rathore aka “Minni” (Deepika Padukone), Sartaj “Taj” Gill (Karan Singh Grover) and Basheer Khan aka “Bash” (Akshay Oberoi).

The quick response unit is called to action after the 2019 Pulwama Attack, in which a vehicle-borne suicide bomber on the Jammu-Srinagar Highway attacked a convoy of Indian security personnel. The team resorts to revenge. What follows are aerial attacks and dogfights, mirroring the Balakot Airstrike. There are dialogues like, “Let’s show them, who’s their daddy?” Hrithik is seen waving the tricolour from a helicopter. In an action sequence, he also schools a “terrorist” in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). “You took what is ours. If we take matters into our hands, every spot in Pakistan will become IoP (India Occupied Pakistan).” The film seems to have taken the premise from Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick (2022) and topped it with aggressive nationalism.

Directed by Siddharth Anand who also directed Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Pathaan (2023), Fighter is backed by Ajit Andhare (Viacom18 Studios), Mamta Anand, Ramon Chibb, and Anku Pande. It will hit the theatres on January 25.