Review: Runway 34
Runway 34, directed by Ajay Devgn is a savior-male complex led film with turbulence, that eventually struggles to land.
The film tells the story of Captain Vikram Khanna, the pilot of a Dubai-Kochi flight that struggles to land in Kochi due to turbulent weather. The film is loosely based on the real-life experience of a Jet Airways flight between Doha and Kochi in 2015, where similar circumstances forced the pilots to land blind on a short runway in a raging storm. The film is also inspired by the Denzel Washington starrer Flight (2012).
The captain of the flight, director Devgn, is an ‘alpha man’. He parties, smokes like there is no tomorrow, breaks rules, and is there in almost every frame of the film. His entry, with suave glasses and strollers, is also accompanied by a background track titled ‘I’m an alpha man’. He doesn’t follow the standard operating procedure of landing and eventually leads himself into a courtroom trial for averting safety procedures.
The writers, Sandeep Kewlani and Aamil Keeyan Khan manage to keep the narrative of the film floating mid-air in the first half. As the second half starts, and the scene shifts to the bright courtroom, they lose sight of the objective and indulge in hero worship.
Ajay Devgn and Amitabh Bachchan in a still from the film.
Amitabh Bacchan plays AAIB boss Narayan Vedant, who is a taskmaster with a keen sense of detail who goes out of his way to prove that the pilot was at fault. His dialogues are also twice repeated throughout the film – one in staunch Hindi, and one in English – for what reason I don’t know.
In one scene in the courtroom, Devgn brings up the ‘human factor’ about why a pilot is blamed each time a mishap occurs, and not the ground staff, and/or everybody else who is involved in making a flight successful. This human factor almost falls on deaf ears amidst the cacophony of Bachchan’s staunch Hindi dialogues and the chatter in the jury.
The other characters in the film, Boman Irani as the owner of the airline, and Rakul Preet Singh as Devgn’s co-pilot are given surface-level characters, which do not add much substance to the narrative. Singh, in one scene, tells Devgn how she doesn’t think landing in Kochi was wise and Devgn just zips through to the runway.
Other than them, the passengers on the plane - a crass Youtuber, an asthmatic Parsi lady, a clingy Sindhi man, a drunken corporate stooge, and naturally, a tense aviation journalist who senses that the pilot is in trouble are also used just for dramatization purposes.
The production design however, is impressive, the special effects are not bad and the background sound is ominous. The turbulence in the air does give us a sinking feeling as well, but after intermission, as the action shifts to a civil aviation court of inquiry, things go downhill. The camera work suddenly becomes filled with close-ups, and mid shots. Singh’s glycerine filled eyes are clearly visible, make the whole drama very ‘staged’.
The film also has many loose ends and unanswered questions. For instance, in one scene, while loading cargo into the plane, two workers have an argument on how luggage is measured in pounds and kgs – which added zero sense to the whole film narrative.
Overall, heroism is inherent to a pilot’s job. But becoming Singham’s in cockpits play with one’s egos. No matter how high you fly, landing is imminent, which sadly, this film does not do.
You can watch Runway 34 in theatres near you.
