Tejas movie review: Kangana Ranaut barely salvages this over-dramatic film that first soars then nosedives

Director: Sarvesh Mewara

Cast: Kangana Ranaut, Anshul Chauhan, Ashish Vidyarthi, Vishakh Nair, Varun Mitra

Where to watch: Theatres

Rating: 3 stars

In between playing a superspy and one of the longest-serving Indian Prime Ministers, Kangana Ranaut is on screen playing an Indian Air Force officer, a fighter pilot. Her new film Tejas sees her play a desi Maverick-type pilot with a evil-may-care attitude but lots of love for the nation. Sarvesh Mewara’s directorial debut has its faults and quite a few of them. The film falters, stumbles and is only saved by its short runtime, an immersive background score, and its lead star who puts up yet another strong performance.

Tejas is the story of Wing Commander Tejas Gill (Kangana), an outspoken but brilliant IAF officer. It is also the story of Tejas, India’s first indigenous lightweight fighter jet. The film sees how Tejas overcomes a personal loss to avenge India and undertake one of the most daring rescue missions, while also averting a terror threat. The plot, while nicely sketched, lacks some finesse in execution. The saving grace is that at 1 hour, 50 minutes, the film does not have time to drag.

Tejas is all about Kangana. She is front, centre, and all of the film, and quite rightly so. I liked how the film nicely set up her character. Yes, she is a patriot but she has other motivations to do what she does as well. The sript allows her to be a full-fledged person and not just a caricature. Alas that cannot be said for most other characters. Save Aafia (played by Anshul Chauhan), most supporting characters in the film are pretty one-dimensional and that is largely because very little time has been devoted to them. So we get the supportive Air Marshall, the dreamy love interest, the curious Academy mate, and a sad mother – all stereotypes but nothing more. Tejas squanders the opportunity to be a really good film with some weak writing.

The weakness of the writing extends to the dialogue. At many places in the film, the lines, meant to be inspirational or impactful, end up being cheesy. Some of the dialogue feels a bit forced and unnatural, taking a lot away from the realism of the setting. Honestly, the cheesy lines are only impactful when Kangana mouths them for she carries the conviction to make even those half-baked lines seem somewhat stylish. In most other places, the writing falls flat.

Much of Tejas is too over the top, following a long list of films that sacrifice subtlety for some seeti-maar moments. This one, however, fails to get those moments right too. So what we get are some above average set pieces seeped in hyperbole and drama. That is more than what this good script deserved. The script gets so much right – from setting the story in real events that everyone relate with to creating a hero you can root for. But the execution is faulty.

The saving grace is the background score and cinemetography. For a film with a reported budget of Rs 40 crore, Tejas gets the aerial battle sequences quite right. Just please don’t bother comparing them with the $200 million Top Gun Maverick and you will be all right. Tejas manages to transport you to cockpit with its visuals without it ever looking like a cheap copy of anything. The background score does the rest. At times, it is hair-raising and at times, it is just the right amount of silence. It creates the right ambience and atmosphere for the film.

Kangana Ranaut tries to salvage the film with her performance. Tejas isn’t her best work. In fact, it is far from it. But it is still better than a lot of what we are seeing on screen currently. She effortlessly and smoothly gets under the skin of the character portraying her strength and arrogance with just as much ease as her pain and vulnerability. She and Anushul Chauhan have done well in the action sequences too. Anshul’s support act has elevated Kangana’s performance and her brief comic scenes are a nice clutter breaker.

But despite its face-savers, Tejas ends up being an inferior film to what it could have been. It is a nie, crisp entertainer with some faults. But with the script it had, the acting talent it managed, and the VFX trickery it achieved, it should have been so much more.