Fateh movie review: Sonu Sood is on a mission to slash, kill and burn

The film opens with a heavily choreographed action set-piece, in which Fateh walks into a crowded room and goes on a killing spree, employing all manner of sleight-of-hand skills, leaving bodies asprawl, and blood everywhere.

This sequence becomes a rinse-and-repeat procedure in different locations through the film, which shifts from Moga, a village in Punjab, to big city Delhi: we know this because the Capital’s markers — India Gate, Red Fort, the banks of the Jamuna — become places for the hero to hang about. The goons change costumes — in one sequence you flashback to ‘Animal’, with the bad guys wearing crimson suits and masks, armed with sharp objects — and faces. The one constant, of course, is Sood’s ex-spy Fateh.

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Sood himself is enough of an actor to make us believe, but the plot becomes increasingly contrived and over-the-top, brimming with an assortment of villains — Naseeruddin Shah as a black-hoodie-clad master cyber criminal, always to be seen in a room full of screens and a shapely red-lipped assistant, Vijay Raaz as his murderous accomplice, and Dibyendu as a crooked cop — deep fakes targeting innocents, and a series of people being electrocuted in real time (nope, not kidding).

The requirement of a leading lady is completed by Jacqueline Fernandes’s Shruti, a computer whizz who works with a group of ethical hackers. There’s also a girl (Shiv Jyoti Rajput) from Fateh’s village, whose complicated situation becomes the reason for our hero to get going. These portions are hurriedly executed, because the film is in a hurry to go back to its mission to slash, kill and burn.

Your tipping point depends upon how much sickening, relentless violence you can handle: clearly, the action choreographers have had a lot of fun, and you go along up until a point. After that, it all becomes an empty, exhausting blur.

Cast: Sonu Sood, Jacqueline Fernandes, Naseeruddin Shah, Vijay Raaz, Shiv Jyoti Rajput, Dibyendu, Prakash Belawadi

Director: Sonu Sood

Rating: 2 stars