‘Fateh’ Review: Sonu Sood Is All Action & Charisma in a Half-Baked Flick
'Fateh' hit theatres on 10 January.
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Gratuitous violence, slick action choreography, and fast-paced action in a relentless spectacle of blood and slashing has quite an universal appeal. A lot of films have used the formula and succeeded and Sonu Sood’s directorial debut Fateh seems to want to follow in their steps.
The first few minutes itself feature an action sequence where Fateh faces off multiple enemies using any and all skills and weapons at his disposal to get rid of them. As evidenced by this, the film is a by-the-numbers action flick. Fateh Singh (Sood) is a former secret agent with a questionable past but when a woman goes missing in Punjab, he is inevitably thrust into the action – her safety is on his shoulders.
The narrative then weaves in a cybersecurity, hacker-filled, conspiracy that’s defrauding thousands. Naseeruddin Shah’s Reza is at the helm of it all – picturised as a stock image of a ‘hacker’. Then there’s Vijay Raaz as his accomplice Satya and a corrupt cop played by Dibyendu.
None of these actors, well-equipped as they are to carry out these roles, will help you stomach what happens next. We get an early indication of the film’s tone when one action sequence follows another; you come to expect gore, you brace yourself for sickening bone crunching. What you can’t prepare yourself for perhaps is the absurdity of it all.
The film touches upon every possibility of cybercrime – from deep fakes to ‘hacks’ that can easily control electrical supply, it’s all there.
As someone who isn't easily fazed by gore, the action sequences remained impressive for a while, only made more awe-inspiring by the crisp editing. As a director Sood shows promise in this film and as the lead, he does even better. There's no denying the imposing effect of Sood’s physicality – as an antagonist in more films than I can recall, he was often the man you wondered if the hero could actually defeat. Now on the other side, finally in a role he has long deserved, he's seen firing on all cylinders.
Jacqueline Fernandez as the head of a group of ethical hackers is a breath of fresh air – her easygoing charm complements the brooding Fateh. As expected though, this spunk doesn't lead to much since she often teeters close to being a damsel in distress.
The one-dimensional characters do little to distract you. It’s easy to ignore a lack of logic when the film manages to distract you with everything else. For a while, the over-the-top action (the action choreographers have clearly pushed themselves to their limit) manages to do just that but that veneer fades quickly.
John Wick stands out for the satisfying redemption arc and the intuitive action shots, Kill manages to touch upon class difference and morality, and Oldboy explores the effects of human loneliness. All of these films, while heavy on action, still manage to explore something deeper. Fateh doesn't manage to do that. There's an attempt to have a ‘message’ about technology, in the wrong hands, being a powerful, destructive tool, but the lack of novelty still stings.