LOC: Kargil

This movie could have been so much better but the director looks like he gave it his best. Many of the props including the uniforms, badges, weapons, artillery, helicopters etc etc were all authentic to the core. There are lot of good things in this movie but the battle scenes are just too cheesy, unreal and overly patriotic to make sense. Why do they always have to use that slow-motion death sequence routine again and again? It is not touching. Its embarrassing.

While the actors could er.."act" well...they were'nt too convincing as fighting soldiers, starting from how the stormed an enemy post, to their stance. The intensity of the battles comes out through excellent use of sound and men shouting but the tracer bullets flying and the flamebursts from the weapons are simply not to be found. Thus when a soldier is supposed to fire a weapon, it does'nt really show. Also, the explosions from mortar, grenades and shells seem extremely impotent as the radius of the blast is extremely small and unconvincing.

The dialog however, is brilliant. Totally outstanding, perhaps worth the entire movie. There are enough swears in this movie on the lines of "motherfer" and "sisterfer" to give Pulp Fiction a run for its money. But since they are also used on the battlefield under pressure, it does not seem as wanton as in other movies. It is a real fact however, that such swears were used on the Kargil battlefield. Talk about attention to detail! The pressure on the soldiers did show, although the fighting did not. The actors did a great job at what they were told to do. If they were trained better and the action sequences better written and choreographed to make them a tiny bit realistic, they movie could have been a real winner. I did shed a few tears here and there though. Even though the action sequences are so flawed, the actors give it all their energy and the unbelievable sacrifices that the soldiers made were no doubt the driving force behind. This movie is worth watching if you keep an open mind. It is at least a good attempt at an honest tribute, even if at times, it can be embarrassing.

LOC Kargil is an apt tribute to the Indian Army's Operation Vijay. The movie has captured the significant events of the war in great detail. Compassion among the army officers is very well portrayed. At the same time, the scenes on their personal lives are well shot. All actors have played their role really well. The movie is a tad long.. however, if you are interested in the story, you won't be bored.. Ppl who have called this movie boring and downgraded the movie are fit for watching movies like Baaghi 3 where the hero alone destroys the entire ISIS.. unfortunately in real life it doesn't happen like this.. Each victory comes at huge costs in terms of casualties.. Jai Hind..

First of all, the movie was 4 hours long. Normally it wouldn't be that much of a problem, but I think in LoC the movie just dragged on for too long. The assortment of actors and actors is incredible, save that fool Sunjay Dutt: his acting alone ruins any of the talent of the other actors. Usually I wouldn't be so harsh but I think in LoC he's especially bad. The dialogue is also way too deep; my 9 year old sister was really struggling with just following the plot. Moreover, I think the movie is too concerned with being popular with audiences than what the original screenwriters perhaps intended. What I mean is simply - the movie had the potential to send a strong message about the war, but the director got too bogged down with flaunting the cast, so much of the seriousness of the movie becomes lost. I think there's a shortage of good movies on all the fighting and violence that's going on, so part of my displeasure at LoC stems from that frustration; the younger generations of India, and indeed, of the world, need to be well-informed about the atrocities that are occurring. Movies like LoC turn the seriousness of the situation into a big joke. Slowly, we're brainwashing people and normalizing people to the idea that violence in the world is not as terrible, when in fact we need to be teaching the opposite. I think it'd be a waste of time to watch this movie, and while I was dumb enough to see it (I plead ignorance), I urge the denizens of the world to boycott this movie and any future movie that fails to relay the significance of world politics and makes a mockery out of war.

LOC could have been a very well made movie on how the Kargil war was fought; it had the locations, the budget, and the skill to have been India's "Saving Private Ryan" or "Black Hawk Down". Instead it come across as a bloated, 4 hour bore of trying to meld the war move with the masala movie. Even the war scenes were terribly executed, using the same hill in all their battle scenes, and spending unnecessary time on casual talk. Instead of trying to appeal to the indian public, a better movie would have been a to-the-book account of what happened at Kargil (like "Black Hawk Down") or even spending time on the militant point of view (like "Tora, Tora, Tora"). Even better, it could have used a competent director like Ram Gopal Verma to write, direct and edit the film. Until then, I'd like to see some one re-edit this film, with only the pertinent portions included; it would make the movie more watchable.

When I was watching this movie, I was simultaneously being hit by two things

• the ordinariness of the 'production' quality. What is called 'production values' - lighting, sound, authenticity of effect, bullets hitting people, the environment. See 'Saving Private Ryan', 'Thin Red Line', 'Black Hawk Down', which have you shivering, and diving for cover as bullets fly. I know we don't have the kind of money that they have, but as a member of the audience I have become terribly spoilt by Hollywood, what more can I say. Remember that I WANTED to like the movie, so I am not being careless when I comment that it came across as too artificial and stage like. All the hill storming scenes for e.g., are all from the same camera angle and all have a hill bathed in a uniform light, as if from a lamppost, and just did not pull me into forgetting it was happening on screen. I was too cognisant that I was watching from an aloof medium, a seat facing a stage on what this was all happening perhaps.

• The story, the challenges our men faced, their pain, their courage, the difficulty of the situation, all of that.

It struck me that as a movie buff, I should try to somehow be able to differentiate the two even in the midst of 'enjoying' the movie. Differentiate all that is hitting me because of what happened out there from that which is hitting me only because of the way it has been treated / presented by JP. I found, limited as I was in my ability to do this, that despite my best wishes to conclude otherwise, I was being only 'moved' by the facts of the former, and not at all by the effort of the latter. If a young guy, who is about to get married to his childhood fiancée dies while bravely storming a hill currently occupied by miserable mother*&£$£s I would strangle personally if I had the guts, its going to move me in tears by just hearing about it. What I couldn't find was a camera angle, a single feature of the presentation that added to this impact. In fact, I will go so far as to claim that the artificiality of the treatment took away some of it.

That's about it - was very moved by what the story had to convey, and the research etc has no doubt been brilliant, but as a celluloid 'creation' , didn't find any 'value add' - as a documentary of what happened in itself its priceless, if only because film reaches out to a lot more people than any other media, including newspapers etc.