‘FLIGHT’ | 2 April, 2021

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Crazy Boyz Entertainment Pvt. Ltd.’s Flight (UA) is a mid-air adventure film. It is the story of a young man whose chartered flight is programmed to explode in the air so that he is killed.

Ranveer Malhotra (Mohit Chadda) has retrieved the black box of the aircraft of his company, which had crash-landed recently. On his company’s board of directors are his grandfather, Balraj Singh (Pavan Raj Malhotra), who is a nominee, uncle, Raman Khanna (Zakir Hussain), Nathwani (Viveck Vaswani), and Farid (Farid Currim). Ranveer boards Phoenix, an aircraft of his own company, to attend a meeting of the board and investors. But something terrible happens on the flight. Who is behind the sabotage? Does Ranveer manage to save the aircraft and/ir himself?

Babita Ashiwal, Mohit Chadda and Suraj Joshi have written an implausible drama which doesn’t appeal one bit because it looks fake. The monologues which a distressed Ranveer utters in the aircraft, which is about to explode, simply don’t ring true. It can easily be said that the three writers have not got the sur right — neither in their story nor in the screenplay. Showing Ranveer pay golf on flight to kill time is just one such abberation. Agreed, there’s precious little he can do to save himself but how on earth can a man, whom death is staring in the face, pretend to be so cool. Had the actor been one with a huge fan-following or unblemished image of a he-man, it might still have been palatable to the audience. But Mohit Chadda, the actor playing Ranveer Malhotra, is neither a popular hero nor have the writers bothered to establish his character as someone who is a supremely cool dude. Even at the start of the climax, when Ranveer is able to touch base with the air control room, his dialogues with his grandfather and the head of staff, Rukhsana (Shibani Bedi) reek of craziness. Similarly, the initial fight of Ranveer with a gang while he is talking to his wife, Ishita (Ishita Sharma), hardly draws laughter which it is supposed to for its cuteness effect. It is anything but cute. Not just are the story and the screenplay quite ridiculous in that sense but even the trio’s dialogues fail to create any impact. For instance, in the face of a calamity, Ranveer mouths a dialogue like “Aaj marne ka mood nahin hai.” The three writers seem to have tried very hard to make the writing oh-so-cool but the drama simply does not warrant cool dialogues. Frankly, the writing looks like the job of novices.

Mohit Chadda tries to be natural but the script gives him such implausible scenes to perform in an extraordinary situation that he doesn’t get the audience’s sympathy or support. Pavan Raj Malhotra is earnest and brings a lump to the viewers’ throats when he is able to establish contact with Ranveer for the first time. Zakir Hussain is good as Raman Khanna. Viveck Vaswani and Farid Currim lend decent support. Shibani Bedi is quite good in the role of Rukhsana. Pritam Singh (as the pilot), Ishita Sharma (as Ishita), Dhruvaditya (as Wasim) and Rohit Pant (as head of security, Kapil) lend the desired support.

Suraj Joshi’s direction is not upto the mark. He has not been able to make a believable film which can involve the audience and make them feel like they are part of the drama. What should have been a nail-biting adventure turns out to be an insipid fare. Smriti Minocha’s background music is so-so. Deepak Pandey’s cinematography is quite alright. Visual effects (Crazy Boyz VFX) are ordinary. Action and stunt scenes (Nishant Khan and Pradit Kumar (of Thailand)) are not half as thrilling as they ought to have been. Amit Pathania’s production designing is reasonably nice. The aircraft set is good. Rahul Mathur’s editing leaves a lot to be desired.

On the whole, Flight is such an unexciting adventure film that it will simply fail to take off.

Released on 2-4-’21 at Inox (daily 1 show) and other cinemas of Bombay thru UFO Cine Media Network. Publicity: so-so. Opening: very poor. …….Also released all over. Opening was weak everywhere.