Nothing communicates the listlessness of Hindi cinema over the last six years better than the diffidence of Bollywood’s two flagship studios: Dharma Productions and Yash Raj Films (YRF). A staleness has pervaded through their overall slates. 

YRF’s Spyverse branding of cross-border harmony was battered by Aditya Dhar’s Dhurandhar films. While Dhar’s films have a gritty self-seriousness to them, the spyverse was nimble and had the ability to laugh at its dramatic license. Dhar’s films are nakedly pro-establishment as opposed to the spyverse, which has managed to remain relatively balanced. This is why they have been mocked. But now, if Shiv Rawail’s Alpha – which positions two women spies at its centre for the very first time – is to be believed, the trolls might be getting under producer Aditya Chopra’s skin.

Like most spy films today, Alpha does not waste time in exploiting the martyrdom of soldiers. The film begins with scores of caskets wrapped in tricolour, as a brooding Colonel Vikrant Kaul (Anil Kapoor) stands beside them sombrely. He is soon joined by Colonel Fateh Singh Lakhawat (Bobby Deol), who shares with him a proposal for a super-soldier programme codenamed ‘Alpha.’ The scene is taking place a day after the Kargil war in 1999 and Lakhawat assures Kaul that if they manage to make a serum that turns ordinary soldiers into enhanced killing machines, they will be able to limit Indian casualties.



Aided by the research of a Dr. Varghese (Dibyendu Bhattacharya, a go-to actor for scientists and top cops nowadays), the serum is developed and injected into dozens of male soldiers, who do not survive beyond a few weeks. A soap opera-esque flashback........

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