‘Fateh’ movie review: Sonu Sood goes on a shooting spree in this stylised yet vacuous actioner

Sonu Sood in a still from ‘Fateh’
| Photo Credit: Zee Studios/YouTube

Early in Fateh when a strapping Sonu Sood, dressed in a sharp black suit, enters a large room full of cocky goons, he is told that there is no space for him inside. The 120-minute bloodbath becomes a metaphor for the struggle of the sincere actor to carve a niche for himself as a solo hero. Sonu has a booming voice and a body to own the big screen. However, in a bid to flex his muscles and serve his off-screen image of a saviour (during the pandemic), Sonu, who trebles as an actor, producer, and director, has bitten more than he can chew.

Cinematographer Vincenzo Condorelli and action directors Lee Whittaker and RP Yadav combine to create the right pitch for a visceral action drama. But after promising to take forward the renewed interest in the classic action genre, on the lines of Animal and Kill, the adults-only film falls into a painful pattern where the plot refuses to thicken and emotions don’t swell enough to turn the theatre into a slaughterhouse.

The Korean rawness in action is impressive but when the storytelling and performances turn out to be undercooked, the blood on the floor becomes a liability. Though the film plays on the difference between a blob of tomato ketchup and a splash of blood, it doesn’t whip up a storm to make it come across as more than just an editing gimmick.

After Fateh Singh forces his way into the room, the story flashes to Moga, the hometown of Sonu, where the intrepid intelligence agent lives under a dairy supervisor’s cover. When a village girl Nimrat (Shiv Jyoti Rajput) falls prey to a cybercrime network, Fateh is forced to return to action and take on the cyber mafia headed by Raza, played by an indifferent Naseeruddin Shah. The veteran actor seems to have taken up the project as a friendly appearance. In the climax, he turns up in slippers. The casual approach kills the contest. The writing doesn’t help his cause either as the veteran is saddled with cliched dialoguebaazi.

In a bid to project Sonu as a one-man army, every other character is relegated to the background. Seasoned pros like Vijay Raaz and Dibyendu Bhattacharya are hamstrung by emasculated character arcs. It seems the writers, where again Sonu has a role to play, are in a rush to create opportunities for Fateh to bash up the baddies. The only interest for fans of gore is the entry and exit point of the knife and other such pointed weapons. By the second half, the action team seems to have run out of ideas and copies the Oldboy-inspired corridor carnage from Animal and Sonu tips his coat to Mithun Chakraborty. The good thing in this Sonu saga is that Jacqueline Fernandez is there to provide only technical support and largely sticks to English to express herself.

Fateh is currently running in theatres