'Alpha' review: Forced swag and unconvincing ‘family’ drama, coupled with distracted and repetitive storytelling, play spoilsport

The moment Bobby Deol mentioned "serum," someone sitting in front of me groaned, "What! This is Captain America, da!" There must be others in the same movie hall — of the minuscule percentage that showed up, that is — who reacted the same way, but silently. My immediate thought: If they had introduced this idea right from the beginning of this YRF spy universe, some of the ridiculous, over-the-top shenanigans in the previous entries would've made some logical sense, at least." Remember NTR Jr. flying through the air while dangling from a drone in "War 2"?

"Alpha", fortunately, doesn't go to the extremes. It is — wait for it — the most grounded of this franchise. But don't heave a sigh of relief yet. The implication is that this is YRF's version of grounded, where they cannot fully resist certain creative choices that make some of us in the audience want to pull our hair out. There are sequences, featuring Alia Bhatt and Sharvari, which comes across as commercials for some sexy swimwear, along with some lingerie, of a certain brand, not to mention vehicles, sneakers, motorcycles, cargo pants... And what about the dance steps that seem clearly designed for reels (a terrible tendency that has afflicted many filmmakers today — what a pity!)? And what about the terrible music that's fit to announce the beginning of a radio program. The songs and the rest of the film feel like two separate pieces, as if supervised by two different people. But since when is this new? What about Alia Bhatt and Sharvari, you want to know?

That's where things get moderately interesting, in good and bad ways. If this is your first introduction to female-led spy movies, you might find everything in here... nice. If you've seen the best examples — "La Femme Nikita" (a small hat-tip in one scene here), "Ballerina", "Atomic Blonde" — you'll find nothing new in "Alpha". The central idea here is that emotionless assassins, who are brainwashed and trained into working for the country, with a dose of a certain superhuman-creating serum that makes them nearly invincible, may not have ALL their feelings completely wiped out.

Alia plays Sita, who is supposed to be this "tough, cold bitch" and walks around acting like a newly enrolled college student trying hard to create the impression that she is someone to be taken very seriously. There are places in the film where this 'swag' appears natural, and there are places where it doesn't. In fact, she is even asked this question by someone close to her. "Don't you have any deeeeper feelings at all?" to which she replies, in short, that considering her life as a "lab rat" for two decades, this kind of behaviour was expected. But then, there is the contradictory visual information from an earlier scene: Sita freeing a lab rat — one of the film’s neat visual touches. So, what was the point of this later dialogue, then? Was it to show that she is still human — that such contradictory statements are made, after all, by a normal human being?

And then I remembered that there is another after all here. After all, this is an Indian movie. You have to have a family — a mother (here, a person and a country, of course), a father (two, in this case, in two different ways), a daughter, and a.... wait, this part is a spoiler, so I'd rather skip it. Speaking of, "Alpha" has a few of these interesting twists, even if they aren't exactly mind-blowing. They are just that — interesting. It has more than one instance of throwing in red herrings. The background of Alia Bhatt's character. The background of Sharvari's character. The connection between Anil Kapoor's character and Bobby Deol's character. The background of the villain.

Interesting, but the dialogues written for all these characters let them down. When you're trying to force swag, cuteness and "family" drama out of somebody, it ventures into cringe ultra pro max territory. "Kashmiri apple. It's dad's favourite." Okay, but your dad isn't dead yet. "Promise me you'll take care of dad." Why? Your dad has shown, on numerous occasions, that he is perfectly capable of taking care of himself. Alia gets an entry scene that, in the makers' mind, must've sounded like a 'mass' intro, but since it's already obvious who it is, what is the point of staging it... that way?

Oh, and it doesn't help that, in the same intro, this fit, athletic woman arrives with a packet of large fries. I must give credit where it's due, though. A couple of fight scenes — the first inside a house, the second with the antagonist himself — were neatly done. No, that superstar cameo didn't do anything for me. First of all, what was the need to include him to sell a movie that is supposed to be led by WOMEN?

You think the film is leading up to a certain point, and then the climax twist is revealed, no surprise, because it's not just a different variation of the same twist in another YRF Spy Universe movie, but also just another case of jumping on the bandwagon. There are, of course, going to be many logic-related questions. Don't waste your time trying to find answers. It's simply not worth it. There are better things to do with your life. I chose to be simply content with the fact that we get a brief glimpse of Bobby Deol in his 1990s hairstyle. If only, at some point, they played, "Soldier soldier meetti baatein bolkar...."

Film: Alpha
Director: Shiv Rawail
Cast: Alia Bhatt, Sharvari, Bobby Deol, Anil Kapoor
Rating: 2/5