Heroes

Heroes
2008
4/5 stars

Two film school slackers, Ali (Vatsal Sheth) and Sameer (Sohail Khan), are required to make a movie to graduate.  They decide they'll make it on "why not to join the Indian Armed Forces".  To help with their movie, a war correspondent gives them three letters, each from a Killed In Action soldier, to deliver to the respective families.

One is for Kuljeet Kaur (Preity Zinta), widow of Balkar Singh (Salman Khan).  The second is for former Air Force pilot Vikram Shergill (Sunny Deol), from his Army officer brother, Dhananjay (played by Sunny's real-life brother, Bobby Deol).  The final letter is to be delivered to a Regiment commander, who in turn gives them one to take to Mr. and Mrs. Naqvi (played by Mithun Chakraborty and Prateeksha Lonkar) from their son Sahil  (Dino Morea).

Ali and Sameer find the delivery of these letters takes their film in a direction they never suspected.

The film starts well, but then when our slackers are introduced, becomes a disagreeable slapstick.  However, if you get past minutes 8 through 17 (fast forward is my recommendation), you are in for a solidly acted, well-written movie.  Most of the songs leave something to be desired, but the love song is quite nice.  It's obvious early on that this star-studded tear-jerker is a paean to Mother India, but that agenda doesn't lessen the power of the movie.  The viewer is left with both the blatant message "you don't have to be a soldier to love your country", and the satisfaction of a good film.

Preity Zinta and Salman Khan