Brothers

Mixed martial arts looks like a sport where anything goes. It is akin to street fighting, with hand-to- hand combat that has boxing, judo and wrestling thrown in for good measure. It has a gladiatorial feel to it. The audience wants blood and there could be sudden death. This movie, a remake of the Hollywood film Warrior, is about two brothers separated by a divisive father, a recovered alcoholic who ruined their once-happy family. David Fernandez (Akshay Kumar) is the older brother, a physics teacher who enters a martial art tournament because he needs extra money. His daughter is ill and he has to pay the hospital bills.

Monty Fernandez (Sidharth Malhotra) is the younger brother, and he too joins the competition. He is a very popular street fighter, and from a mile away it is clear that the two will face each other in the final bout. A depressing air of inevitability envelops this film, made worse by horrid clichés from Hindi melodrama of the 1980s. For the first hour of the movie, we are treated to every trick in that old book, with the booze hound father Gary Fernandez (Jackie Shroff) turning up dead drunk (twice) in scenes where he sways from side to side as in a pantomime while trying to reconcile with his wife and sons.

Only by comparison is the second half of the film better. This has the fight scenes, as the brothers knock out one international competitor after another. While the grand arena, the hyperbolic television commentators and the blood thirsty promoters and viewers are quite entertaining, the spectacle is milked dry by the second encounter. After this, it is all a blur of thuds, grunts and the crunching of bones.

It is clear that the actors have trained hard. Both look like professional fighters. But a poor narrative and a hackneyed directorial style let the two combatants down.

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Ajit Duara