“Rudra, stand down!” orders a woman’s voice. She sounds like Tabu. But she is not. This film seems to be another Fighter. But it is not.
Going by the trailer released earlier today, Operation Valentine is a boxoffice winner even before the film releases on March 1. The trailer is intense and engaging, somewhat like the aerial battles that define the Top Gun genre. Except that this time, Varun Tej’s Rudra doesn’t seem to be faking it.
What took Siddharth Anand’s Fighter down was all that posturing… Oh God, the look-we-are-saving-the-country posturing. In Operation Valentine, Varun Tej and the rest of the cast don’t waste their time, and ours in trying to impress us with their patriotic zeal.
Everything and everyone look far more professional, far more equipped for the job of protecting our country, than their blasé counterparts in Fighter.
And there is more chemistry between Varun-Manisha in 2 minutes than between Hrithik-Deepika in entire runtime of Fighter.
The comparisons with Fighter are inevitable. Operation Valentine goes into the same territory and the identical battle. The comparisons will intensify when the film releases.
For now Operation Valentine is clearly the winner.
Varun Tej says he hopes the trailer will prove that Operation Valentine is not Fighter.
It is not. War, just like love, is open to multiple interpretations.
“We are looking at one interpretation of what happened at Pulwama on 14 February, 2019. We hope it gets the audiences’ attention,” says Varun.
You have it.
