Attack

Arjun Shergill, a soldier badly wounded in a terrorist attack, is left paralysed. A military research programme makes him an offer: an artificial intelligence interface implanted in his brain will let him move again and turn him into a one man weapons system. At the same time the parliament building is seized with hundreds of hostages inside. Lakshya Raj Anand directs, in his first film. John Abraham plays Arjun and is also a producer and one of the writers, with Jacqueline Fernandez and Rakul Preet Singh in the cast. The film attempts something new for Indian cinema: a domestic super soldier narrative. That genre had belonged largely to American production and there was no comparable Indian example. The response was divided. The action choreography and the fight scenes were praised; the screenplay, the scientific explanations and the working of the AI character were found weak. Its title is Attack: Part 1 and a sequel was planned; the commercial result fell below expectations. Who it is for: viewers who follow Indian action and experiments with genre. Who it is not for: the story is a plain imitation of American models, the technical ambition exceeds the budget, and the film does not close on itself.