The Forgotten Army Web Series review: Analysis of The Forgotten Army Web series

Rating: 3.5/5 Stars (Three-point five Stars)

Director - Kabir Khan

Star Cast - Sunny Kaushal, Sharvari, Rohit Choudhary, Karanvir Malhotra, MK Raina, R Badree, TJ Bhanu, Shruti Seth

Analysis: Director Kabir Khan said in a recent interview that while he can forgive bad movies, he can never forgive bad policies. The politics of his first show as a creator, The Forgotten Army of Amazon Prime, maybe irreproachable, but making the film certainly isn't.

There have been many ways in which the five-episode war drama could have gone wrong, especially in today's unstable climate, when the story can be modified to adapt to popular sentiments. But before you can breathe a sigh of relief to see that the program doesn't fall into the same torrent of nationalist pride that has consumed recent "historians" like Manikarnika and Tanhaji, it drowns in its good intentions.

Among its numerous defects, there is a narrative that simply touches its subject without ever penetrating its depths, like a bullet aimed at the skin of an enemy. Honor the courage of true heroes by reducing them to composed characters, effectively diluting their successes by including more stories in the mix, in a way that does no favor to any of them.

The Forgotten Army indicates the commotion of the HBO Brothers Band but does not show patience.

For example, one character making fun of another in episode one for being "the black sheep of the family" says it would be an honor for him to travel together to protest in episode three. This would be a good progression for each of them if the program took some time to develop them. But all we are told, in essence, is that one of them is a "journalism student" with a vague idea of ​​making a difference, and the other is a war veteran killed by the PTSD. A relaxation session and about 15 minutes of screen time cannot transform your equation.

Khan frames the program in two timelines, with the same character in different eras: one timeline was established in the past during World War II, and the other in the late 1990s, which already greatly complicates a structure. disjointed. Before we can establish ourselves in a story, we are thrown through decades, once again forced to form a connection with characters we know almost nothing about. What motivates Surinder Sodhi (Sunny Kaushal), besides a strong sense of duty? Who is he fighting for? Are you a traitor or a true nationalist? Is it all an appeal passionately dedicated to weapons to gather thousands towards an uncertain cause?

All these questions are addressed only with a slight interest, which is fine, but they have learned nothing from the mistakes made by films such as Pearl Harbor, whose insistence on shoes in a romantic plot in the context of a real tragedy was summarized by a Bewildering New York Times headline: "War is hell, but very pretty" There is a similar romantic song in The Forgotten Army, which involves Surinder, who, in all honesty, should have been concerned with more serious matters, and a young Photographer with a misplaced sense of identity. Another subplot, with feminist connotations, must have seemed like a good idea on paper, but it exists as a void.

The show jumps back and forth between these two timelines with the finesse of a cannonball in the chest: a scene on a train in 1943 is reflected in a similar scene in 1996; When a character travels to a particular country in the 1940s, he makes sure to visit the same countries again in the "current day" timeline.

The 20-25 minute episodes are too short to sell the personal struggles of these people, most notably Surinder, whose past as a soldier in India's national army still haunts him, many years later.

With such a restrictive time, Khan and his writers are forced to present the exhibition fairly bluntly. So when Elder Surinder asks his nephew, Amar, if he has heard of the Battle of Singapore, the upset teenager continues to recite a hypothetical Wikipedia entry about the historical event, as if he had memorized it a few moments before. To be clear, both Surinder and Amar are aware of the battle. The acting was only for the convenience of the audience, perhaps because the writers speculated that even in 2020, we prefer that the context be fed with a spoon and not transmitted dramatically.

Making sure that a young forced actor offers a dialogue as dry as this is boring enough, but that one of the biggest stars in the country tells what the episodes' summaries are essential, makes no sense. I will not reveal to whom Kabir Khan has chosen to make this narrative, but I will tell you this: it is not Salman.

It is quite obvious that Amazon has spent a lot of money on the show, but in a trend that is slowly becoming incredibly clear, Indian filmmakers seem to match the scale with CGI. There is no single computer-generated point that cannot be identified immediately for what it is. Instead of mixing seamlessly in the background and serving the story, the poor quality CGI draws attention to itself, which distracts from the emotional core of what's going on.

On one of the few occasions when Subhash Chandra Bose makes his appearance, despite being the founder of the INA, he is still primarily a background presence: he faces a sea of ​​CGI soldiers, cloned with perhaps the same technology used to encourage the crowd in the FIFA video games, around 2002.

For some strange reason that I can't understand, Khan filmed the program with long lenses, inadvertently creating a metaphorical abyss between the audience and the characters, as if the literal he had already built with writing was not enough. The pieces of action have little sense of geography, which takes away urgency and cohesion. An early battle scene intended to evoke classic Hollywood war movies is more like a fight on the playground.

It remains to be seen if a less demanding crowd turns to the forgotten army, but ask yourself this: can you trust a show that is at risk of being forgotten to shed light on a piece of forgotten history?

3.5 Stars! (Three-point five Stars)

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