Rashtra Kavach Om Review: Aditya Roy Kapur Hugs His Arnie Avatar In Crazy Movie

Rash­tra Kavach Om Film Cast: Aditya Roy Kapur, San­jana Sanghi, Ashutosh Rana, Jack­ie Shroff, Prakash Raj, Prachee Shah Paandya, Vicky Arora

Rash­tra Kavach Om Film Direc­tor: Kapil Varma

Rash­tra Kavach Om Movie Rat­ing: 1.5 stars

An under­cov­er agent caught in the mid­dle of ene­my crosshairs unleash­es a sto­ry of fast-paced action pep­pered with emo­tion. Or at least that’s the inten­tion. ‘Rash­tra Kavach Ommarks anoth­er new addi­tion to the line­up of films that Bol­ly­wood has now embraced as a safe bet: a hero with patri­o­tism ooz­ing from his pores, stalk­ing the state’s under­hand­ed ene­mies, backed by loy­al friends and a lov­ing fam­i­ly unit.

We first encounter the brave Om Rathod (Aditya Roy Kapur) in the mid­dle of a botched covert oper­a­tion, on a boat some­where out at sea, full of ammu­ni­tion and machis­mo. Bul­lets whizz by, sev­er­al boys dressed in black are killed, and our hero finds time to push a but­ton in his ear and tune in: There Is A Mole In Our Midst. No, this is not a spy com­e­dy. Maybe it should have been.

Watch the trail­er of Rash­tra Kavach Om movie here:

Who can be the mole? Is it some­one in Om’s depart­ment? A sour-faced boss in a sari who march­es around throw­ing barbs at every­one? The wily Prakash Raj who has starred in so many sim­i­lar movies late­ly that it’s hard to tell them apart? Miss­ing gray-toed Jack­ie Shroff who was work­ing on a dead­ly mis­sile or some­thing? The very talk­a­tive Ashutosh Rana, who keeps talk­ing about “Deshb­hak­ti” and how “Rash­tra” (land) is greater than “rakt” (blood)? Or some­one else?

There’s a younger spy brigade too: can’t the oldies have the fun, can they? Join­ing this squad, which has a crack com­put­er expert (Vicky Aro­ra), is a spright­ly girl (San­jana Sanghi): why should boys have all the fun? When­ev­er the plot, which enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly embraces its fan­tasies, needs a dis­trac­tion, we get action scraps with this crowd. The win­ning Sanghi is total­ly out of place here, although she does get a few kick­ing, hack­ing, and shoot­ing scenes. As mil­len­ni­als say, kuchch bhi.

But this is Bol­ly­wood. No film with­out Maa, right? Prachee Shah Paandya plays the tear­ful moth­er to the max and does­n’t look much old­er than her son on screen. When Roy Kapur does­n’t nes­tle in the bosom of his fam­i­ly, he lives up to the film’s florid state­ment of being a ‘maz­boot yod­dha’ (strong sol­dier) and not a ‘kam­zor beta’ (weak son). You see, the very hard­work­ing Om is not only an Indi­an sol­dier, he is also a rashtriya kavach (life sav­ing shield) so pay atten­tion. Inter­na­tion­al arms deal­ers, greedy trai­tors, and oth­er assort­ed vil­lains trem­ble when Om switch­es to his Arnie avatar, with bulging biceps, heavy machine guns, ram­pag­ing through ene­my hide­outs and blow­ing up machines and men. phew