Airlift is about the plight of 170000 Indians stuck in Kuwait when Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein attacked and annexed Kuwait.
It is about one person’s true grit of helping his countrymen escape from a hopeless situation in the war zone.
Ranjit Katyal(Akshay Kumar) is a go-getter and ace negotiator, he hobnobs with the powers that be of Kuwait Royal family and feels and believes himself to be a Kuwaiti then an Indian.
He lives a lavish life with his wife Amrita (Nimrit Kaur – pleasing) and his daughter. All this changes overnight as Iraq invades Kuwait and all his contacts in the royal family have fleed leaving the country to the Iraqi army.
He is desperate to leave the country but the General in charge of Kuwait demands 100000 dollars, mean time seeing the plight of the people of Indian origin in his office and their relatives who have taken refuge in his office he has a change of heart and decides to take the baton in his hands.
With the help of his affluent Indian friends Ranjit draws a plan to take them out of the country to a safe place from where he can have them evacuated to India. During all this he is also in touch with a good Samaritan in the External Affairs ministry in India, who despite the apathy shown by the then External Affairs minister prevails over the various ministries and the Air India management for the evacuation of the people of our country from a neutral country like Jordan.
The movie though well crafted is a bit late in the day, it could have been made earlier when it was more relevant, it also lacks a bit of punch. The movie claims that it is an inspiration of true events and that a total of 488 flights to were flown by Air India and the Air Force to bring back over 100000 people from Kuwait which in itself is commendable.
It is a pity that we have come to now of the unknown Indians who participated in one of the biggest operation of evacuation from a war zone in the world.
As far as acting goes all the actors Have played their part well. Akshay has given a very restrained performance, Nimrit is in her element and the direction is above average.
All in all Airlift is a must watch for all patriotic minded Indians.
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Cast of Airlift:
Akshay Kumar as Ranjit Katyal
Nimrat Kaur as Amrita Katyal
Feryna Wazheir as Tasneem
Inaamulhaq as Major Khalaf bin Zayd
Lena as Deepti Jayarajan
Purab Kohli as Ibrahim Durrani
Prakash Belawadi as George Kutty
Kumud Mishra as Sanjiv Kohli
Credits of Airlift:
Produced By T- Series, Emmay Entertainment, Cape Of Good Films, Abundantia Entertainment
Directed by Raja Krishna Menon
Produced by Nikhil Advani, Monisha Adwani, Aruna Bhatia, Madhu G. Bhojwani, Bhushan Kumar, Krishan Kumar, Vikram Malhotra
Written by Raja Krishna Menon, Suresh Nair, Rahul Nangia, Ritesh Shah
Music by Amaal Mallik, Ankit Tiwari
Cinematography – Priya Seth
Edited by – Hemanti Sarkar
Airlift, hindi movie review
