Movie Reviews
Film Review: Fighter (2024) by Siddharth Anand
Hrithik Roshan takes to the skies in the first chapter of a new all-action franchise from Siddharth Anand.
Emotions and politics fly fast and hard in Siddharth Anand’s mega-budget Hindi-language “Fighter”, a new attempt at making the next big cinematic universe after his stints in Yash Raj Films’ Spy Universe, “War” and “Pathaan”. While “Pathaan” heralded the return of Bollywood legend Shah Rukh Khan, “War” saw him refine his partnership with the similarly beloved Hrithik Roshan, giving him another super-hunk super-spy role after “Bang Bang!”, a remake of the Tom Cruise/Cameron Diaz action rom-com “Knight & Day”. The shadow of Tom Cruise looms over Anand’s work with increasing prominence nowadays; “Pathaan” recruited “Top Gun: Maverick”‘s stunt coordinator Casey O’Neill as its second unit and action director, and now, Anand’s very own production company Marflix Pictures utilises Roshan’s lucrative leading man status into India’s very own “Top Gun” (complete with a villain modelled off Cruise’s hair and outfit in “Mission: Impossible II”). Spreading their wings from one extended universe into another is an exciting prospect for masala cinema, and with the billion dollar success of “Maverick” on the world stage, Roshan playing a pilot while Anand pilots behind the camera should send a heat-seeking missile towards the competition.
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Their approach is as broad as they come. A crack team of IAF helicopter and jet pilots is assembled at Srinagar Airfield, bordering Kashmir, following a significant threat from Pakistani mujahideen working covertly under the funding of the Pakistani government. The squad is made up of some fun caricatures, including but not limited to the dorky rookie ‘Sukhi’ (Banveen Singh), wife-guy ‘Taj’ (Karan Singh Grover), no-nonsense girl-amongst-boys ‘Minni’ (Deepika Padukone), and (of course) their tortured but brilliant hotshot leader ‘Patty’ (Hrithik Roshan). They bicker, they train, they drink and party together, and gradually become a cohesive unit despite the inevitable ego growth that comes from knowing how to fly death machines worth the economy of a small country. But when a skirmish between Pakistan and India leaves some of our heroes behind enemy lines, faiths are shaken and tempers are flared as what was a national conflict becomes a deeply personal one.
Any alarm bells ringing about the shameless jingoism of making Pakistan an actively villainous presence in this narrative are absolutely real and legitimate, with Anand’s view on a current and long-running international conflict as deeply concerning, angry and reductive. The eventual fistfight between an aggrieved Patty and sadistic uber-bad guy Akhtar (first-time Rishabh Sawhney, excellent in a cartoonishly evil role) sees Hrithik seething his way through a monologue punctuated with suplexes and sucker punches about Kashmir’s ‘rightful’ Indian ownership, and how (if they’re not careful) Pakistan itself will become an Indian occupation. Given the touchiness of conflicts surrounding land ownership in this current moment, it’s difficult not to be left with a sour taste in the mouth with such vitriolic right-wing views being spouted by crowd-pleasing entertainment of this scale.
Ιt’s a film that’s not above its villains suicide-bombing a gang of flag-waving innocents as its initial conflict, and it somehow encourages both sides to play dirtier until the entire picture is practically vibrating with Islamophobia. Its highest emotional peaks come in the form of its Indian heroes screaming “Jai hind!” as they see their flag burning, which is inexplicably more painful than having their fingers snipped off. Bollywood deals in fantastic melodrama, we all know that, but there is a line that “Fighter” repeatedly crosses, becoming such a one-sided screech at its chosen enemies that it transforms into something unpleasant and just plain nasty.
It’s also no secret that action movies of this high a calibre can frequently be this politically reprehensible, yet also retain their towering status as exciting spectacles. Anand’s mission to give his country its first aviation action picture sees him take major inspiration from both “Top Gun” films, compounding their narrative beats into a single near-three hour epic, and also trying to apply some of the action tricks he learned from Casey O’Neill on “Pathaan”. His 250 crore budget has certainly given him the numbers to work with, and most of that goes towards some slick CG that thunderously establishes the mile-high world of the IAF. The training montages are engaging and the geography is initially tight, but the action does lose its way as each sequence becomes more repetitive than the last. In terms of proper stunt work with pilots and actors alike experiencing real G-force, “Top Gun” still has the upper hand, with too much of “Fighter”‘s aerial combat being obviously CGI, leaving the element of genuine, weighty danger to one side for most of the picture.
Instead, “Fighter”‘s pleasures lie in its commitment to the yearning melodrama between its good-looking cast. Our introduction to Patty sees him fly a jet upside down whilst landing as a show-off tactic, and a simple cocked eyebrow from Minni is enough to get the ball rolling for some ripe (if ultimately chaste) romantic tension between Roshan and Padukone. Much of the interpersonal drama takes place on runways at golden hour, Roshan’s razor-sharp jawline being practically made to have the setting sun bounce off it as his teary eyes do the heavy lifting. The film’s love language is power ballads and motorbikes, sunset regret and near-miss kisses, and is directed with so much feeling and brio that it’s almost enough to forget the hatred the film is otherwise capable of.
There are also some excellent dance numbers where Roshan is completely at home, especially in a disco-influenced party sequence where Anil Kapoor’s hard-ass commander Rocky lets his hair down (metaphorically, of course: there is no force on earth that can fell his impressive quiff) with a glass of whisky and a tight-fitting turtleneck. Had “Fighter” simply been about the vibes shared by pilot pals and the COs who love throwing the book at them, it would be a far more successful film than the lumbering, surprisingly barbaric beast it turns into.
While it’s a more grounded chance for Anand to flex his action muscles than his Yash Raj spy films, it’s a significant step backwards for him as a maker of lighthearted entertainment. His spy adventures were hardly unimpeachable as nationalistic manifestos, but they had a self-awareness that stopped them short of being actively offensive. His own franchise launch at Marflix crosses that rubicon and ends up as needlessly full of itself and drunk on the power of its nation, muddying the waters and speaking up unduly when the real world is experiencing its own agony at the same moment. Where the “Fighter” saga goes from here is unknowable, yet one can only hope these handsome people don’t get any more ugly than this.
Movie Reviews
1986 Movie Reviews – Dangerously Close, Fire with Fire, Last Resort, and Short Circuit | The Nerdy
by | May 9, 2026May 9, 2026 10:30 am EDT
Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1986 was an exciting year for films giving us a lot of films that would go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. It was also the start to a major shift in cultural and societal norms, and some of those still reverberate to this day.
We’re going to pick and choose which movies we hit, but right now the list stands at nearly four dozen.
Yes, we’re insane, but 1986 was that great of a year for film.
The articles will come out – in most cases – on the same day the films hit theaters in 1986 so that it is their true 40th anniversary. All films are also watched again for the purposes of these reviews and are not being done from memory. In some cases, it truly will be the first time we’ve seen them.
This time around, it’s May 9, 1986, and we’re off to see Dangerously Close, Fire with Fire, Last Resort, and Short Circuit.
Dangerously Close
I would love to tell you what the point of this film was, but I’m not sure it knew.
An elite school has turned into a magnet school, attracting some “undesirables,” so a group of students known as The Sentinels take up policing their school, but will they go too far?
The basic plot of the film is simple enough, but there is an oddball “twist” toward the end tht served no real purpose and somehow turns the whole thing into a murder-mystery. Mysteries only work when you know you’re supposed to be solving them, and not when you’re alerted to one existing with 15 minutes left.
Decent 80s music, some stylistic shots, absolutely no substance.
Fire with Fire
Oh wait… I may want to go back and watch Dangerously Close again over this one.
Joe Fisk (Craig Sheffer) is being held at a juvenile delinquent facility close a high-end all-girls Catholic school. One day while running through the forest as part of an exercise he spots Catholic schoolgirl Lisa Taylor (Virginia Madsen) and the two fall immediately in love because… reasons.
This film is just so incredibly lazy. The ‘love story’ really can just be chalked up to ‘hormones.’
Last Resort
Once again I am baffled how Charles Grodin kept getting work so much through out the 1980s.
George Lollar (Grodin) is a salesman in Chicago in need of a vacation. He loads up the family and takes them to Club Sand, which turns out to be a swingers resort as well as surrounded by barbed wire to keep rebels out.
There are a lot of talented people in this movie such as Phil Hartman and Megan Mullally, but the film lets them down at every turn with half-baked ideas of jokes. Supposedly, Grodin rewrote nearly the entire script and I think that explains a lot about how this film feels like unfinished ideas. It’s a Frankenstein monster of a script with half-complete ideas that feel like they are from completely different movies.
Short Circuit
Lets just get this out of the way: What in the world was Fisher Stevens doing?
NOVA Laboratory has come up with a new series of military robots called S.A.I.N.T. (Strategic Artificially Intelligent Nuclear Transport). Following a successful demonstration for the military, Five is struck by an electrical surge and finds itself needing ‘input.’ After inadvertently escaping the lab, it wands into the life of Stephanie Speck (Ally Sheedy), who cares for animals and takes Five in. Dr. Newton Crosby (Steve Guttenberg) is trying to get five back, while the security team wants to destroy it.
Overall, the film is thin, but harmless. The 80s did seem to love a ‘technology being used for the wrong reasons’ theme, and this falls into that camp. What is mind-blowing, however, is Stevens as Ben Jabituya, Crosby’s assistant. Not only is he wearing brown face, but he’s doing a horrible Indian accent and later reveals he was born and raised in the U.S.
His whole character is mystifying.
Honestly, a couple of decades ago I may have recommended this movie, but it’s a definite pass now just for being offensive.
1986 Movie Reviews will continue on May 16, 2026, with Sweet Liberty and Top Gun.
By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer
Posted: May 8th, 2026 / 08:34 PM
AFFECTION movie poster | ©2026 Brainstorm Media
Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Jessica Rothe, Joseph Cross, Julianna Layne
Writer: BT Meza
Director: BT Meza
Distributor: Brainstorm Media
Release Date: May 8, 2026
AFFECTION is an odd title for this tale. While it is about a number of topics and emotions, fondness isn’t one of them. Obsession, definitely. Love, possibly. The kind of general warm fellow feelings associated with “affection”? No.
There have been a lot of movies lately in which characters – mostly women – are grappling with false identities and/or false memories imposed upon them, mostly by men.
Let us stipulate that the protagonist (Jessica Rothe) in AFFECTION is not an android or in an artificial reality. However, we can tell something is way off from the opening sequence. A car is stalled on a tree-bordered highway. Rothe’s character is lying face down on the asphalt beside it, possibly dead.
But then the young woman rises, dragging a broken ankle. She experiences a full-body seizure. Fighting to recover, she sees oncoming headlights and tries to run, only to be hit by a car.
The woman wakes up in a bed she doesn’t recognize, next to a man (Joseph Cross) she likewise is sure she’s never seen before. One big confrontation later, the man says his name is Bruce – and that the woman is his wife, Ellie.
Ellie insists that her name is Sarah Thompson, and she is married to someone else, with a son. When she sees her reflection in a mirror, she doesn’t relate to the face looking back at her.
Bruce counters that Ellie has a rare neurological condition that causes her to block out her waking life and believe her dreams are real. This is why they agreed, together, to move to this isolated house, without the kinds of interruptions that can hinder Ellie’s recovery.
The set-up is presented in a way where we share Ellie’s skepticism. But Ellie and Bruce’s little daughter Alice (Julianna Layne) immediately identifies Ellie as “Mommy!” Alice appears to be too young to be in on any kind of deception, so what is going on here?
AFFECTION eventually explains this via a helpful videotape, though it’s so convoluted that viewers watching on streaming may want to replay the sequence to make sure they understand the exposition.
Writer/director BT Meza musters a sense of menace and lurking weirdness, as well as making great use of his location.
We still have a lot of questions, many of which are still unanswered by the film’s end. It may not matter to the points AFFECTION is trying to make, but a better sense of exactly how all this started might help our investment.
As it is, despite a heroically versatile performance by Rothe, a credible and anguished turn by Cross and appealing work from Layne, we’re so busy trying to piece together what’s important and what’s not and how we’re supposed to feel about all of it that it can be hard to keep track of the action as it unfolds.
Agree or not, Meza’s arguments are lucid and illustrated clearly by AFFECTION’s events. However, the movie is structured in a way that becomes more frustrating as it goes. We comprehend it intellectually but can’t engage viscerally.
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The hosts gave their reviews and assigned the following star ratings:
Deanna: ★★★★.5
Allison: ★★★.25
Julia: ★★
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