Code Name: Tiranga movie review – Ek Thi Tiger and she is wasted in a thrill-less spy ‘thriller’

Language: Hindi

Cast: Parineeti Chopra, Harrdy Sandhu, Sharad Kelkar, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Rajit Kapur  

Director: Ribhu Dasgupta

Star rating: 0.5/5

Writing a woman as the lead in an actioner is the only good idea to be found in the entire length and breadth of this thrill-less espionage ‘thriller’. Note: it is just an idea. Having cast Parineeti Chopra as an undercover agent working for India’s Research and Analysis Wing, the makers of Code Name: Tiranga shoot her so poorly that there is not enough evidence by the end of this inexorably dull, unrelentingly unimaginative espionage drama that she is indeed capable of action and that she did not have a stunt double standing in for her for the most part.

Parineeti always looks spunky and gives off the air of someone who could probably wallop a bunch of bad people in the way male stars routinely do. But the camera angles chosen to shoot her in Code Name: Tiranga are so mindless that this film fails to serve as a showreel for other interested producers. Taapsee Pannu’s fighting skills were showcased better in a teeny role in Baby, than Parineeti’s have been through the approximately 138 minutes of this film.

There are not enough central roles for women in Hindi cinema, and even less in action dramas, which means every opportunity is precious and every opportunity lost a cause for mourning. Code Name: Tiranga drove me to tears for this reason and because it is one of the most boring movies I have seen in what ranks as one of the worst years that Bollywood has ever had.

Parineeti plays Durga Singh in Code Name: Tiranga, a spy on an assignment to finish off a mole that R&AW recently detected. Along the way, she makes shocking discoveries that could shake the very foundation of the Indian intelligence establishment.

How do you double-cross a double agent? This is the question before Durga and her colleagues. Slowing her down on this latest mission is her fear and tension regarding the man she loves, a Turkey-based doctor of part-Indian origin called Mirza Ali (Harrdy Sandhu).

Hold on…Durga Singh and Mirza Ali? Down the decades, in Hindi films that have been touted as liberal for featuring inter-community romances, the man in the relationship has been Hindu and the Muslim or Christian partner has been the woman in most cases. This cannot have been a coincidence, considering that in patriarchy’s view, women are the property of the community they were born into and are later lost to them as ownership passes to the community of the person they marry. Rajkumar Hirani’s PK (2014) earned the wrath of fundamentalists because it defied this safe formula by having an Indian Hindu woman fall in love with a Pakistani Muslim man. In such a context, it is heartening to see a Hindi film showing a Hindu woman in love with a Muslim man, and this writing decision is nothing short of courageous in the present political scenario. Sadly, that courage does not give birth to a quality script.

Code Name: Tiranga is so generic in terms of its storytelling style and story that recounting the plot feels like a waste of time. Money has been spent on shooting in picturesque locations across Afghanistan and Turkey in addition to India, but the far more important investment of time in the writing process appears to have been bypassed.

Disappointingly, this film is written and directed by Ribhu Dasgupta whose credits include the thoughtful 2016 Hindi film Te3n starring Amitabh Bachchan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Vidya Balan. The rest of his filmography does not match up to Te3n, but Code Name: Tiranga is definitely the low point of the lot.

In these dismal circumstances, Parineeti tries to look earnest, but can only try. Ditto Harrdy Sandhu who was good playing Madan Lal in Kabir Khan’s 83 just months back. On the other hand, Rajit Kapur as Durga’s colleague looks aloof and out of place.

The only somewhat memorable passage in Code Name: Tiranga comes early when Mirza learns the truth about Durga while he is on stage singing Dama dam mast qalandar. Frenzied action in the background while overwhelming music plays in the foreground is a device used in popular action flicks across the world, not just in India. It is therefore not the most innovative conception, but the singing here is powerful, the beloved tune revisited well, the editing brisk and the emotions stirring enough to make it an impactful scene.

It’s all downhill from there. It reflects poorly on our times that “not fully invested in hate or hyper-nationalism” has become a compliment, but so it is. Therefore it is to be noted that in a decade when several Hindi films have sought to cash in on what appears to be the dominant mood in India by peddling anti-Muslim, anti-minorities sentiments and screaming deshbhakti, Code Name: Tiranga has boarded that bandwagon but its heart is not in it despite the extended revisitation of Vande Mataram, the hyperbolic portrayal of the dushman desh’s evil designs and other clichés. This is, after all, a film about the love between a Durga and a Mirza. And that’s the best thing that can be said about it.

Twice in the final half hour I thought the film was over, but as I readied to leave, another yawn-worthy stretch rolled out. As if anxious to drive a nail deep into the coffin of Hindi cinema and bury it, in the absolute end, the heroine is made to spout some awfully clichéd lines about how Durga is the form that every woman takes to right wrongs blah blah blah and that every time the Tiranga is under threat, she will take that form again. Aiyyo! Spare us the clichés.

Tiger is not the only one who is zinda, dear Bollywood. Sherni Zinda Hai too and she is waiting for a well-written, well-produced, fun action flick where she gets to bludgeon evil with the same elan as men do. Code Name: Tiranga is a disaster. The wait continues.

Rating: 0.5 (out of 5 stars) 

Code Name: Tiranga is now in theatres.

Anna M.M. Vetticad is an award-winning journalist and author of The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic. She specialises in the intersection of cinema with feminist and other socio-political concerns. Twitter: @annavetticad, Instagram: @annammvetticad, Facebook: AnnaMMVetticadOfficial

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