Force

If only the quality of John Abraham’s performance matched the abs he had on display

If only the quality of John Abraham’s performance matched the abs he had on display

Though Force is a remake of the Tamil film Kaakha Kaakha, reverberations of that unexpected ‘encounter’ movie, Ab Tak Chhappan, continue to be felt in the only kind of Hindi movies still sympathetic to a particular unit of the police force—sharp shooters allergic to making court appearances. In possibly the most lethal scene in Force, a team of gunmen from the narcotics division surround a well-known drug dealer. They leave him armed, pretending to get into a departmental argument themselves. When the man makes a move, he is executed.

Unfortunately, character construction in the film is very weak, and though the protagonist, ACP Yashvardhan (John Abraham), looks the part all right, with abs so perfect they seem ‘PhotoShopped’, he is a cardboard cop. He has developed a thick hide of ‘unfeeling’ and believes that no emotional attachment must penetrate it. To his mind, and from his experience of the department he works in, any personal relationship that an encounter cop has is an asset to the enemy.

So, though he likes a girl called Maya (Genelia D’Souza), he keeps her at arm’s length for her own safety. This means that she has to make all the moves—ask him for a date, let loose a string of suggestive remarks, and, when all else fails, sing to him. Apparently—and we discover this from stray comments by a colleague’s wife (Sandhya Mridul)—ACP Yashvardhan is still a virgin. How she knows this is never explained, but it is nice to know that the narcotics division of the Mumbai Police has at least one mystery.

Clearly, Force is also an image make-over for Abraham. Not only is he centerstage, he is pitted against a muscle man (Vidyut Jamwal) as well endowed as himself. Their confrontation makes for plenty of bloody action, but since the movie doesn’t turn the Abraham persona into anything more interesting, we could well be watching a wax model at Madame Tussauds.

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Ajit Duara