War Chhod Na Yaar Review

One-line Review: Intense atmosphere at Indo-Pak frontier turns witty for a change!

Positive points: Refreshing concept, Slapstick war theme, Meaningful message, Hilarious performance.

Negative points: Poor execution, Non-catchy music.

Plot: Ruth Dutta (Soha Ali Khan), the reporter of Tez Channel gets an opportunity to cover a war between India and Pakistan. She lands at LOC border with Defence Minister of India (Dalip Tahil), who pays his visit to the site just to grab some media attention and after a while, flees from there. Instead of heading back to the town, Ruth stays there to film the actual scenario of Indo-Pak border. But to her amuse, the situation at frontiers is reverse of negativity and violence, instead Captain Raj (Sharman Joshi) and General M. Qureshi (Javed Jaffrey) belonging to Indian and Pakistani army, respectively share friendly bond with each other, accompanied by their soldiers.

But keeping their emotional ties aside, these soldiers are made to fight with each other by their respective countries Ministers and are solely the puppet of superpower nations.

Direction and other technical aspects: Assistant director of the comic caper 'Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!', Faraz Haider marked his directorial debut with 'War Chhod Na Yaar' and has done a commendable job by bringing up the meaningful message of peace in an unusual way of war-satire. Though the execution is not up to the mark, he has attempted to advent an entirely new genre, the film being India's first war-comedy. Faraz has also penned down this refreshing concept. The screenplay is a delight to watch, featuring the warriors on the opposite side of barbed wire battling with each other through "antaksharis" and playing cards at night.

Cinematography done by Sejal Shah, capturing the landscape of Rajasthan is eye-catchy and has overall done a decent job. To maintain the misty war backdrop, the makers have not used lights for the night scenes. Instead all the lightning is of torches, to project the realistic feel and this factor added up authenticity in the scene.

Performances: Sharman Joshi comes around as an able Indian Army officer, he looks macho in the film and was delight to watch in his tussle conversation with Javed Jaffrey. Javed, a Pakistani general has again given an applausable performance with his perfect comic timing. But the man, who steals the show with his humour is Commander Khan, played by Sanjay Mishra. Soha Ali Khan didn't deliver much of impact on-screen, which was required to enact a Journo. While, Dalip Tahil has done a credible job playing multiple roles of Indian Defence Minister, Pakistani Statesman, Chinese General and an American Senator, all in one.

Music: The film doesn't have any such chartbuster song. Yet, the title track "War Chhod Na Yaar" might manage to secure a corner in your mind. Kailash Kher's "Mharo Des Mahan" garnishes the screened visuals with its rustic desi flavor. The war-centric film, also comprises a melodious love duet "Main Jagoon Aksar" sung by Shreya Ghoshal and Javed Ali, with the mystic blend of chorus "qawwali" by Ali Aslam. Lastly being a patriotic film, it does contain an inspirational anthem, "Khwabon Si Jo".

Final Verdict: A meaningful movie, being equally entertaining at the same time. It liberates substantial message that war does not benefit to either countries and showcases whom does it actually benefit to.