Bollywood’s obsession with history rests comfortably with chronicles of Indo-Pak hostility. After recent films based on real-life heroes – ...
Bollywood’s obsession with history rests comfortably with chronicles of Indo-Pak hostility. After recent films based on real-life heroes – Shershaah and Bhuj: The Pride of India – comes yet another movie with a topliner actor.
Ranjit M Tewari’s BellBottom is based on airplane hijackings in the 1970s and 1980s during Indira Gandhi’s prime ministership. This time too, the “enemy” to be decimated or outmanoeuvred is the intelligence agency from across the border.
Akshay Kumar plays Research and Analysis Wing agent Anshul Malhotra. Anshul embarks on a covert mission to free 210 hostages held by hijackers. The 125-minute thriller, written by Aseem Arrora and Parveez Sheikh, is meant to be a roller coaster spyride. What with the action zigzagging back and forth too often, it leaves viewers rather puzzled in trying to piece together the several narrative knots.
An Air India flight that takes off from Delhi is hijacked and diverted to Lahore. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (Lara Dutta), along with her trusted aide RN Kao (Denzil Smith), is worried sick. After all, this is the fifth hijacking in the past seven years.
Things turn in Gandhi’s favour when Anshul, who is better known by his code name BellBottom, steps in to salvage the situation. BellBottom firmly believes that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence...
