'Squad' review: Danny Denzongpa’s son Rinzing makes a disastrous debut

Rinzing Denzongpa in 'Squad' on Zee5. (Image: Screen grab)

Warning: Wear a nice fat headband Cobra Kai-style, because you’re going to be slapping your forehead many times throughout the film.

That said, let’s look at the opening scene. The area looks pretty nice and green. With huts for terrorists.

When they labelled it training camp, I thought they would show terrorists shooting at stuff, but no! There’s a man spooning out white powder into packets out in the open. What?! No gusts of wind expected, I suppose. But wait! Indian soldiers have infiltrated and Pooja Batra is boss, sending backup they need.

Backup arrives in the shape of Bhim Rana - chubby cheeked Rinzing Denzongpa - fighting hand to hand with terrorists who have guns, but choose instead to jump him. Poor chap! Instead of making a super entry in his debut film, with bomb blasts that decimate terrorists to dust, he made me wonder about all the heroine out in the open, now blowin’ in the wind!

Suddenly Bhim is rescuing a child (in the terrorist camp) who will remind you of the creepy child Aalia (played by Alicia Witt in David Lynch’s Dune. The rescue doesn’t go well and Bhim now gets nightmares so he drinks shots at some bar… That Dune's Aalia-like child I admit would give anyone nightmares… But then they have another child that needs rescuing. And who must rescue the child and redeem himself? Bhim!

The backstory of the child will make you fall off your chair, so keep floor cushions handy. Cyborgs and inventor dad and massacres… Whatever are Hindi films trying to do? Is this kid also some sort of a cyborg? Is she some kind of X-kid whose tears have powers to kill baddies of the world? What is going on with this film?

The kid does have special powers. The power to kill lots of soldiers because Bhim has promised he will take care of her. Wait… Didn’t he just say that he didn’t like kids?

I must admit, that after Rahuls and Prems and Tiger in Bollywood, the name Bhim is a showstopper. Each time the ‘Base’ called to say, ‘Come in, Bhim! Bhim? Come in, Bhim!’ I promptly pictured a cardboard cutout golden paper crown on this Bhim. Yes, the film is that bad. From one corridor to another, the bad guys in fatigues run at him with guns, and he fights them in a very poor man’s version of fights in Raid the movie. To stop us from comparing these silly soldiers to footballers who fake a fall, the director adds a never ending rubbishy wannabe rap track that has strange word combinations like ‘Jab Durga Kaali saath ladein, jay heend!’ Why Durga-Kali, you ask? Because the team has two women also. And one of them is a street fighter, no less!

'Usually, the bombs have red, blue and green wires, this one has red, green and yellow. I cannot help,' says the bomb expert who then storms off! Whaaaa?

With dialogue like this, you are grateful this movie has more action than words, but you must hand a prize to Mohan Kapoor who says with supreme confidence, 'Main jahan hoon, wahan clearance ke bina makkhi bhi nahi aa saktee!' And then he scrambles because the hero is already in the building!

I am now totally curious about the character sketches they must have created when they wrote the script. Oh, what script? We are almost at the end of the film and we don’t know why the armies of five countries want the silly whiny crybaby the Indians are protecting. Why does Mohan Kapoor have to behave like he’s going to be a traitor right from the beginning? It’s also true that subtlety stabbed itself many times throughout this movie, so why make Mohan Kapoor behave any other way but corrupt? There’s a muscleman with a carpet leftover stuck on his face for a beard called Amit (Amit Gaur) who gets to seethe and snarl and fight the hero and also terrorise the child by threatening to cut off her nails or fingers (Why? Why kidnap a little girl if you’re going to chop off her fingers? Who knows! Maybe he likes watching little girls cry?!)

Anyway, there's a scene where Bhim jumps off a helicopter to chase a falling rocket launcher, catches it, turns it around in a super anti-gravity move and shoots the helicopter filled with baddies. Before you shout, ‘Jai Bhim!’, we see Pooja Batra walking towards a chubbier version of none other than Modiji who spouts about desh and betiyaan… Pooja Batra turns away from him and walks into the camera promising us a sequel (Is Bhim really alive after jumping/falling off that helicopter? Or is the child hugging him in the meadow scene one of those ‘I see dead people’ scenes?)

Oh yes, the little Poo from K3G (Malvika Raaj) has grown into a one of the girls in the ‘team’. Apart from the shades of her famous aunt Anita Raj, the poor girl has been offered little else in this film. Another yesteryear connection is the director who happens to be actress Zaheeda’s son Nilesh Zaheeda Sahay.

Danny Denzongpa was such a good looking man, and a good actor too. Alas his son looks more like Elvis in his latter days than his dashing dad. The saddest part, Danny the dude has more expressions in this one song than his son does in the entire film.

Also read: Akshay Kumar, Kartik Aaryan, John Abraham take on terrorists in films that could become top grossers in the genre