'Uri' is that war film we've been waiting for (Movie Review)

Film: "Uri"; Director: Aditya Dhar; Starring: Vicky Kaushal, Mohit Raina, Paresh Rawal, Yami Gautam.

Entertainment News:  Wars often rage within the soldiers' hearts, specially when they belong to army families. In one of this significant war film's highpoints, Major Vihaan Singh Shergill, played by the self-effacing Vicky Kaushal, gathers his troop together somewhere in Kashmir before striking surgically in the country next door (okay, Pakistan. There. I said it).

These are soldiers who have lost loved ones in terror attacks, and their blood boils.

"URI - The Surgical strike" brings the blood of cross-border tension to a boil but avoids a spillover. There is a rush of patriotic pride in the product -- and why should there not be? -- but it is reined-in, curbed and never allowed to spill over in a gush of irrepressible jingoism. If you want to see soldiers dancing around a bonfire singing about how much they love their country and how much miss their loved ones, then you've got the wrong war film.

Yes, these soldiers love their country. But family comes first. And when Vihaan's brother-in-law (Mohit Raina, making a striking big-screen debut) is killed in a vivid recreation of that real-life murderous attack at the Uri army base, Vihaan channels his personal loss to seek revenge on behalf of the country. It may not be the most patriotic of purposes. But it gives a certain disingenuous believability to the mission.

Read my full review here → URI - The Surgical strike Movie Review

Uri attack: Military reviews 'escalation ladder'

The strike by jihadi militants on Sunday on an army camp near Uri, in which 18 soldiers were killed and 29 injured, has inflamed tensions along the Line of Control (LoC). On Tuesday, the army shot down eight Pakistani militants after intercepting a 15-strong group that was discovered infiltrating from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK).

With public opinion and the media aroused, and with Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowing to punish those responsible; and the army's top operations officer declaring the military would retaliate at a time and place of its choosing, both sides of the LoC are bracing for what might come.

New Delhi has pinned the attack on the Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militia controlled by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), a wing of the Pakistani Army. Home Minister Rajnath Singh has declared Pakistan a "terrorist state" and the Indian Army, already grappling with public turmoil in the Kashmir Valley, is evaluating options to extract revenge for Uri.

Pakistan presents an easy target for an Indian diplomatic offensive against its terror-friendly ways, in western capitals and multilateral forums. However, a calibrated military riposte would need more careful consideration.

Business Standard has discussed India's options with senior officers close to the planning process. All of them agree the army can easily initiate retaliation. But, thereafter, there would be two sides in the game. Escalation would be both inevitable and unpredictable.

India's first option is to retaliate through fires (the effect of weapons) without Indian forces physically crossing the LoC. This would involve "fire assaults" on targets across the border, using artillery, missiles, and multi-barrel rocket launchers and Brahmos cruise missiles for deeper-lying targets. A fire assault involves suddenly opening up intense fire with massed weapons on an unsuspecting and carefully chosen target, catching people in the read full story