Runway 34, Review: Plane truth

Yes, the film is about an aircraft, and a pilot’s attempt to land against all odds on Runway 34. But that is exactly half the story. The film has no action whatsoever, not even a single blow, and it is not even about hijacking. A married man, with a young daughter, is piloting a plane with 150 persons on board, when it hits rough weather. How he manages to avoid disaster constitutes the portion before the intermission. Next appears a much feared man who is going to conduct an inquiry and is out to get the pilot. For what? That constitutes the second half, which is a court-room drama. Runway 34 is exactly half an aircraft facing impending disaster movie, and the second half is about the Inquiry Commission probing the pilot’s conduct. It is very different from the run-of-the-mill stuff we have been watching for some time now, but, in spite of being directed by Ajay Devgn and co-starring him with Amitabh Bachchan, their seventh film together, it does not have the power to soar above 35,000 feet.

Based on a true incident – a Jet Airways Doha to Kochi flight, 9W 555, a Boeing 737-800 aircraft, had a narrow escape on 18 August 2015, after facing landing difficulties at the Cochin International Airport due to bad weather and unclear visibility - the story is about an over-worked but much respected pilot, Vikrant Khanna, who has clocked over16,500 hours of flying time, and is known for averting a sure crash in Hongkong some years ago. Vikrant is commissioned to fly a Skyline aircraft from Dubai to Cochin (Kochi) the day before his daughter’s birthday. He has promised her and his wife that he will make it home in time. The night before his evening flight, he is invited to a party, and, after initially refusing, he goes. There, his friend eyes a woman from a distance, and challenges Vikrant to get to know her. Vikrant not only gets to know her, he brings her to his friend and they drink and party together. After the party, Vikrant rushes home, crashes into his bed and wakes up just in time to make it to the flight. At the airport, he meets his co-pilot, Tanya Albuquerque, who is a fan of his.

After take-off, the plane begins its journey to Cochin, with the usual mix of oddball passengers. They include a selfie-stick obsessed young man, a Sindhi businessman who tries to flirt with his female co-passenger, an aviation journalist, the drunk who can never have enough of liquor and two ladies, one of who is very old and very sick. As they approach Cochin, the control tower informs them about bad weather. Updating them about the deteriorating weather conditions is a man, Tripathi, who has recently lost his son, and is both ill and in a state of shock. When the weather turns really bad, Vikrant is advised to divert his plane to Bengaluru, something that Tanya endorses, but Vikrant keeps trying to land at Cochin. Finally, he agrees to attempt a landing at Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram). Air Traffic Control at Trivandrum advises him to attempt the landing at a particular runway, but Vikrant insists on landing at Runway No. 34.

First time writer Sandeep Kewlani (story, screenplay and dialogue) has paired with Aamil Keeyan Khan (screenplay and dialogue), and this, apparently, is their first feature. A humungous amount of technical research and advice must have been needed to get all the aviation terms, designs and technology right, and one cannot comment about this aspect unless one is, like one passenger on board, an aviation journalist. What one can comment about is the lack of smaller characters, or the poorly developed/not developed at all characters, like most of the passengers, the members of the Inquiry Commission, the wife, the friend at the party, the legal adviser, and so on. By and large, these actors are not well-known faces, but then what about Boman Irani, as the owner of Skyline? That’s another poorly written character. His interaction with a woman who is the niece of the Aviation Minister turns out to be an exercise in futility. The writers throw a red herring in the shape of a mini gin bottle, and keep the secret from the audience till the end. It is never explained why Vikrant does not take Tanya into confidence about the reasoning of his decisions and, instead, acts like braggart. Since the film is based on true incidents, it is possible that the things panned out the way they have been written. That, however, is no excuse for not dotting the ‘i’s and crossing the ‘t’s.

Functioning of the Inquiry Commission is far from clear. Narayan Vedant conducts the inquiry, the entire inquiry, standing, and even reads the verdict himself. So what exactly was his role? Chairman? Prosecutor? There is an Inquiry Commission, which is reduced to the status of puppets. With Vikarnt choosing to remain silent or say only a few words, it becomes a kind of monologue coming from Vedant. An attempt is made to make his dialogue sound funny, by having him speak in high-flown, Sanskritised Hindi, and then translate it into English. This is a reversal of the technique employed the late actor Mirza Musharraf, who used to speak first in English and then its Urdu translation, during the 40s, 50s and 60s. Vikrant’s advocate, Radhika Roy, is present at the hearings, contributing little, though. She barely whispers two lines into his ear during the entire trial. It is never revealed what the old lady was suffering from, except by way of showing her use the asthmatics’ pump. Surely chronic asthma cannot be a life threatening disease. We see no other symptoms that might suggest that she is suffering from a major disease. A one-line joke about a Bengali ground staff member still counting in pounds (lbs), when India moved to kilos (kgs) some 60-70 years ago, fails to draw laughter.

Attempt No. 3 for the director is a shade better than attempt No. 2, Shivaay. However, I cannot comment about Ajay’s directorial attempt No. 1, U Me Aur Hum, simply because I have not seen it. Painstaking efforts have been made to make the plane, the flight simulator, Air Traffic Control towers, the airport, etc., look real. Unfortunately, the lie detector scene raises laughs, for all the wrong reasons. What is Ajay’s fixation with smoking? There is so much of smoking, or not lighting a cigarette, and so much talk around it, that we begin to think that cigarettes might have a crucial role to play in the Inquiry. No such thing. Ajay’s main actors, and he plays Vikrant himself, all do well under his captainship. The minor players do not matter, in the scheme of things. Undeniably, it is difficult to make a film that has two distinct halves. Yes, the Inquiry is about the flight in question and the persons being grilled are the very same ‘heroes’ who pulled off the impossible, yet the second half is almost detached from the first.

Amitabh Bachchan, in the grilling, accusatory, dispensing justice mode, needs little or no directing. His diction crystal clear as ever, he seems to be enjoying himself. On one occasion, he goes over the top, only to apologise for it, and get back to normal in a flash. It is a good performance, but neither a challenging one nor a remarkable one. Ajay has the more difficult of the two roles, and he builds a sort of mystery around his persona. This very mystery also works against his character, who comes across as half brooding, half bigmouth. On the positive side, he is seen as always speaking the truth, and having a photographic memory. Audiences might sympathise with him when they see him become a zero from a hero, for no real fault of his. And it must be mentioned that at 53, Vishal ‘Ajay’ Devgn belies his age.

Rakul Preet Singh looks cherubic and turns in an impressive performance as Tanya Albuquerque, who insists that her surname be pronounced in the original Portuguese way. She is given enough scope to display her talent, in some of the cockpit scenes. One scene, when Amitabh grills her and she almost breaks down, is particularly worth mentioning. Aakanksha Singh, in a brief role, makes a comely wife to Vikrant. Angira Dhir, as Radhika Roy, manages to use her one-and-a-half scene to good effect. Boman Irani hams a bit and glowers a bit in a role that is little more than a bit.

Cinematography by Aseem Bajaj is to be commended for the angles and the pace at which he composes the trolley shots. A lot of the visuals are either sets or miniatures, which are cleverly integrated into giving you the real feel. Editing by Dharmendra Sharma is crisp in the first half and a bit laid back in the second half, with the film ending-up at 142 minutes. Expert Anil Mohile delivers with the background score, while the songs are thankfully restricted to just two, in keeping with the film's theme, and composed by Jasleen Royal.

Originally titled Mayday and shot during the Covid pandemic, Runway 34 has a fair dose of turbulence, both on board and in the minds of the ‘crew’(read cast). Keep away, if you are expecting a slug fest or a violent confrontation between Ajay and Amitabh. Go for it if you want to see something different, something never seen before on the Hindustani film screen, brought to you by Ajay Devgn Ffilms (the extra f is not a typo) just for the sake of it. That is the plane truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Rating: ** ½

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGv8CIkQp_g