Myth, religion, reality, belief: ‘Ram Setu’ takes all these elements, gives them a good shake, letting them settle where they will, and presents yet another Akshay Kumar film strictly embedded in the times we live in. Dr Aryan Kulshrestha (Kumar) is an archeologist who worships evidence-based science, and has no time for anyone, including his dear spouse (Nushrratt Bharuccha), a professor of literature, who is arrayed on the side of ‘vishwaas’.
The film’s consultant, Chandra Prakash Dwivedi, directed Akshay in the recent ‘Samrat Prithviraj’, another ‘historical’, which is in line with the Mera Bharat Always Mahaan mission. In this one, the mythical waterway between India and Sri Lanka, re-named Adam’s Bridge by the British who wanted to ‘erase’ India’s history, is Ram Setu. Aryan, who has been heartbroken by the destruction of the Bamyan Budhha by the Taliban (he happens to be on site when the mayhem takes place), is yanked into the Ram Setu project as a highly-regarded professional. He has secular credentials, which includes, imagine, a Pakistani colleague, so who better than him (Aryan) to tell the unbelievers that Ram Setu, was in fact, ‘constructed’ during the ‘period’ of Lord Rama?
It’s all very Amar Chitra Katha without the story-telling skills. Not satisfied with setting up the conflict, which plays out in the Supreme Court on the one hand, and on the high seas, and on picturesque island of Sri Lanka, the plot gives us bad guys who want the destruction of the Setu, good guy KP (Dev) who turns up out of the blue to help Aryan and his colleagues, scientist Sandra Ribello (Fernandez) and a white person who is swiftly dispensed with. As chief antagonist, Nasser frowns a lot, and his main man (Rana) chases everyone with a gun.
There are also references to the civil war in Lanka, and Jaffna being a hot spot. But all these mentions of current affairs are window dressing, merely. The intention of the film is laid out for everyone to see: the conversion of the secular, science-minded Aryan into a believer who convinces the court of the weight of that belief, which becomes the only truth.
Actually, done better, this could have been a film which posits opposing view-points, giving each the pulpit. But ‘Ram Setu’ is nothing but a pedestrian film, which is interested only in hammering home its message. It is also the kind of film in which a female scientist, having been dunked in sea water, and having emerged in a cave, gives off a very Raiders of the Lost Ark feel. With her pink lipstick intact.
Ram Setu
Cast – Akshay Kumar, Nasser, Satya Dev, Jacqueline Fernandez, Nushrratt Bharuccha, Pravesh Rana
Director – Abhishek Sharm
Rating – 1.5/5
