To say there’s not much new in this story of female super-soldiers is kind of reductive, because major action blockbusters centered around a woman are still unusual in Hindi cinema. Fortunately Alia Bhatt is a major Hindi superstar, who has occasionally also worked in English, and who absolutely has the combination of fighting spirit and lithe vulnerability needed to lead a movie like Alpha. Men watching are supposed to not know what they want to do with her, not that Alpha overtly plays into that. Instead what we have here is the latest instalment of the YRF Spy Universe, which is assembling (whoops) a team of highly trained soldiers who can protect India against all enemies. In the previous installment, War 2, those enemies were corrupt politicians, criminal cartels, and a masculine mutual admiration society that dares not speak its name. This time around Alpha is X-Men meets Frozen as it shows what the female of the species can do on behalf of mother India, with a little help. But Alpha also is about bodily autonomy, the selfish choices men make for women, and the importance of a happy childhood. And within a blockbuster setting, those ideas are new.
Sita (Ms. Bhatt) was raised under armed guard in abandoned-factory isolation by a doormat of a doctor named John (Dibyendu Bhattacharya) and a bulldozer of a colonel named Fateh (Bobby Deol). This is because her mother Janaki (Dia Mirza) died in childbirth, despite her military father Vikrant (Anil Kapoor) secretly dosing Janaki with the super-serum, code name Alpha, that he and John developed so India could have super-soldiers. But the soldiers all die, and Fateh told Vikrant that Sita died too, because he wanted to experiment on the super-baby himself. Fun! Sita does indeed grow up to have enhanced abilities, such as excellent hearing, an alarming tolerance of pain, and fighting skills of the kind that action blockbusters can’t get enough of. She’s also a computer hacker, because why not. But Sita did not enjoy this childhood and opens the movie by killing absolutely, positively everyone who was involved in it.
Once Vikrant learns of the massacres and realises the unknown woman responsible is indeed his lost child, his first thought is for a skateboarding influencer named Durga (Sharvari), who lives in Valladolid in northern Spain, because why not. And while hints have been offered in this review, the connection between Sita and Durga shouldn’t be spoiled, even as they end up together in jaw-droppingly beautiful Kashmiri mountain scenery squabbling every step of the way. To sum up, a lot of people aren’t who they thought they were and the connections everyone has to each other are more complex than you’d expect. Also Hrithik Roshan has a cameo, as a ‘monk’ making an elaborate mandala with colored sand on the temple floor despite all the wind whooshing through his excellent hair.
This is Shiw Rawail’s first movie and it’s to his credit as a director that the emotional stakes are so high the implausible rooting-tooting action only feels in service to it. Sita’s bad time is made so sincere that the heightened action feels appropriate. Only a villain wouldn’t be on her side. It’s even more of a surprise that this strong feeling fits right into this major action franchise. The YRF Spy Universe combines Indian patriotism (including direct reference to real-life terrorist incidents) with implausibly futuristic Mission: Impossible-style plotlines that the real world simply does not offer. Or one hopes that it doesn’t. The action scenes involve so much wirework and other VFX enhancements that they cannot possibly be mistaken for the real thing, as much fun as they are to watch. Yet this over-the-top combination of genuine horror and non-genuine heroics is the bread and butter of Hindi cinema, and based on the recent wild box-office success of action movies, local audiences just want more. Paradoxically, that means the quiet moments when Durga tries to relate to Sita have more of a bite than anyone would expect. Ms. Bhatt gets to have a wonderful time as a combination of Angelina Jolie and Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft, Sharvari more than keeps up on the action and acting front, and Mr Kapoor’s incredible head of hair holds it all together. Mr Deol doesn’t have much to do other than be very villainous, but his restraint in not chewing the scenery while he does it gives his performance that same fresh bite which Alpha as a whole enjoys.
We never see movies about the childhood of men who grow up to be super-soldiers, though. Do we, as a society, think that men find it easier to kill while women need a lifetime of trauma in order to do the same? Or are those silly questions to ask when you could just have some very pretty women fighting equally alongside some very handsome men in service to their country? It was only in 2024, remember, that Mr. Roshan ended separate patriotic blockbuster Fighter with a monologue on the importance of treating women equally to men, in the armed forces and everywhere else. The payout from Alpha will only come a few movies down the pike, as we have Pathaan 2 and Tiger vs Pathaan within YRF Spy Universe to look forward to first. But change comes step by step, and Alpha doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel while it does it.
Alpha is now in limited theaters.
Learn more about the film at the IMDB site for the title.
You might also like…
