Runway 34 Movie Review — Sucharita Tyagi
Listen, the first half of this film was shockingly good, Ajay Devgn directs the hell out of it.
But alas, post-interval, its ghosts of Shivay past.
Okay.
Hey yall, my name is Sucharita, this is a movie review, and today we’re talking about Ajay Devgn’s ‘Runway 34.’
So if you’re a queasy flier, you don’t need me to tell you that movies about plane crashes and other untoward incidents are not for you. But for the vast majority of lesser aviation-averse folks, Runway 34 is a pretty great thriller that meets pretty basic courtroom drama. Vikrant Khanna is a senior, well-experienced pilot, but he is a heartthrob first.
But hey, agar main khud ko star karkey, khud hi produce aur direct kar rahi hoti movie toh merey bhi entry shot par “she’s your amma, she’s alpha beta gamma” bajj raha hota, koi na.
And quickly you let this indulgence slide because then writers Aamil Keeyan Khan and Sandeep Kewlani spend actual screentime creating a real human behind the initial façade. A man who goes on a bender before an international flight, an arrogant know-it-all who assumes his work experience automatically makes him a better human than others, a chain smoker, borderline rule-breaker, basically a person who’s pushed his luck JUST far enough and is poised to be tripped over any second.
Luck runs out when a short flight to Cochin encounters extraordinary troubles and Vikrant finds himself finally fully feeling the weight of the responsibility he carries.
As director and lead actor, Ajay Devgn goes along with developing an unlikeable protagonist whose comeuppance is around the corner. A cock-sure, smug man, skirting around disaster is a fun game to witness. As the audience, you know shit’s about to go down, but this person on screen, who seems so sure of everything, is still in the dark. The viewer is pleased to know they have an edge over this larger-than-life figure.
Hence the first half of Runway 34, with the plane, the inclement weather, and the fuel shortage, passengers mein discord is the perfect kind of cheesy thriller you’d love watching on a weekend. While some scenes are clearly shot on a green screen, the attention to detail wrt the CGI is impressive, the patterns a plane makes while bursting through clouds, etc. Will they land, will they crash, will a terminally ill patient die, will the rude passenger receive a slap from the air hostess? Fuel ka countdown, baarish jhamaajham, ek ke baad ek unfortunate galtiyaan.
But when the adrenaline rush is over, and in the second half Amitabh Bachchan comes in as a senior official from the aviation ministry, looking into the pilot’s culpability, the decision to change genres doesn’t pay off. The writing stumbles and the film flounders about, extending itself in multiple directions, unable to decide what is it exactly trying to explore, instead choosing to do a little bit of everything. We are reminded HOW MANY things must go wrong for an event like this to occur, which makes sense but are unable to figure out where our protagonist’s arc is headed.
How is a person to gain redemption, if they don’t ever realize the many errors of their ways? And this is when you realise, for actor-producer-director Ajay Devgn, refrains of “He’s the man he’s the alpha man”, are celebratory, not cautionary, and ‘Runway 34’ turns into another ‘hero nahi superhero’ film. Boman Irani enters like a Mallya-type airline owner whose office looks like it's straight out of ‘Hunger Games’. Rakul Preet Singh, who thus far was great as an adoring co-pilot, good at her job but too much in awe of the PIC, is reduced to a blubbering mess. The dialogue becomes stilted, Mr. Bachchan is given two versions of each line, first in Hindi then in English, AND he’s given a serial killer mood-board with pins and cutouts from very sudden newspaper reports.
Cliché par cliché jod-jod kar kisi tarah film climax ki taraf pohonchti hai, by which time even those unfamiliar with the real-life incidents which inspired the film, have accurately guessed how things are going to end. You never find out why Rakul Preet Singh’s last name is Albuquerque or why two airport staff workers were so emphatically talking about pounds vs kilos when refueling a plane.
Red herring yeh moment thin a nahi, lekin I have to mention the many moments in the trailer which are just not present in the film. I wont point out which ones, kyunki khud dekho movie mein, but I do admire this editorial choice, kyuki kuch toh innovation ki koshish kari gayi idhar.
Hilariously on IMDB, Runway 34’s description calls Ajay Devgn’s character Vikrant a “flying prodigy” kyunki copywriter ko prodigy ke maayne nahi maloom shayad? And like even if he WAS an aviation prodigy, which the film makes NO mention of btw, kids aren’t allowed to fly planes?
I identify most with a journalist character on this flight, who says out loud how things are going wrong while they’re going wrong, and is promptly asked to shut it and not speak the truth, by a vlogger/YouTuber wearing literal rose-tinted glasses, seated next to him. A few moments later the pilot comes out and asks everyone who is not a pilot to shut up, and the film entirely forgets about the well-meaning critic, who in fact was right in his assessment of the situation.
Arastu keh gaye, “those who know, do, those that understand, teach?”
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