So, I just saw Airlift!  In a sold out theater in which I and my friend were the only non-desis (pardesis?).  The Indian flag got spontaneous applause.  It was very patriotic.

The movie itself, weirdly, not that patriotic.  And like no other Indian movie I have ever seen.

Read on to learn more!

(For spoilers go here)

My friend and I were talking about it afterwards, and we both agreed that what shocked us the most–more than the incredibly accurate period details, the lowkey acting, the lack of any real Akshay-action scenes–was that the story was so straightforward!  Where were the little back-alleys, the side trips, random comic interludes?  Nope, all moving forward like a freight train, everything and everybody focused on the same goal.  That goal being, getting a bunch of Indians the heck out of Kuwait as it is being invaded by Iraqis.

And this straightforward fraight train is being driven by Akshay.  More than that, Akshay is fueling the train!  This is his every-third-movie actual acting performance.  Which, for once, lined up with his every-other-movie super hot performance.  Wait, I can do this math!  That means, every 6th movie?  right?  Anyway, he’s hot and acting.  It’s a definite star role, but he isn’t playing a star, if that makes sense?  He has to be the strong center of the ensemble, and to play the strong center of the community.  But he can’t be “Akshay Kumar-Superhero!”  He has to be a Kuwaiti businessman who is struggling with confronting violence for the first time if the rest of the movie is going to work.  And he nails it.

The rest of it is good too.  The miscellaneous character actors do a good job in their little bits.  Oh!  And there’s a hot guy!  I mean, another hot guy, since this is the magical every 6th film alignment of Akshay hotness and acting.  The other hot guy is Purab Kohli, who is apparently Shekhar Kapur’s nephew?  And also a former model and super hot.  He has a really good character in this, starting out as just another miscellaneous background guy and slowly growing to be almost a second hero.  It’s a nice quiet filling in of a personality, and he does a nice job with it.  And also, is hot.

The lady from The Lunchbox (Nirat Kaur, but she needs to be in a few more films before anyone knows her as anything besides “the lady from The Lunchbox“) does a good job in a fairly thankless nagging wife role.  Actually, her bit is the weakest part.  Not the actress’ fault.  But she has to be the one playing Devil’s advocate to force Akshay to say heroic things about how a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.  And then at the end she has to be the one most in awe of his awesomeness.  The only good thing is that the cast an actress roughly age appropriate.  Actually, it’s not just that she’s age appropriate, she also feels classy and confident and intelligent and sophisticated and all of that. Even if she has to say naggy things, at least they are coming out of the face of someone who looks like she could actually be married to Akshay Kumar.  Oh, also, she kind of looks like Twinkle in this.

Let’s see, what else?  I think that’s about all I can say without getting into spoilers.  Really good production design, very straight-forward narrative, generally well-drawn characters, same old boring naggy wife character excepted, and all around excellent acting, same old boring naggy wife included.

Oh!  One more thing!  DO NOT bring your small children with you!  There were a bunch of little guys in my theater, and I don’t know if it bothered them or not, they weren’t crying or anything, but I know if I was their age and saw this stuff I would have had nightmares for WEEKS!  Actually, I may still have nightmares.  Very very vivid evocation of living in a war zone.