Runway 34

​"Runway 34".

Watched Hindi movie "Runway 34". 

This movie is directed by Ajay Devgan. Produced by Ajay Devgan. Written by Sandeep Kewlani, Aamil Keeyan Khan. Music by Jasleen Royal. Cinematography by Aseem Bajaj. It features Ajay Devgan, Rakul Preet Singh, Akanksha Singh, Angira Dhar, Hrishikesh Pandey, Flora Jacob, Avantika Akerkar, Boman Irani & Amitabh Bachhan. Film runs for about 2 hour and 27 minutes and was released in Apr 2022. I watched it on 14th Aug 2022 on Amazon Prime with Aditi, Mihika and Dada .

Ajay Devgan is pilot. His Dubai Cochin flight is diverted to Trivandrum due to storm. Trivandrum has equally severe storm and flight landing is suspended but somehow the message never reaches the plane. The plane is running out of fuel and they must land. Pilot calls mayday and lands blind.  Post incident, AAIB launches investigation led by Amitabh. 

Ajay Devgan plays supremely confident, brilliant, stoic, gifted pilot. He acts well. Rakul plays shaky, impressionable, inexperienced copilot. Amitabh plays the investigator and judge. Amitabh gets a lot of latitude in the tribunal. Boman plays the owner of the airline who’s only objective is to merge his airline with another at a good price.

The story is based on true events, so can’t really credit the author for it. Script is written very well. Despite it being a courtroom drama for second half, audience is riveted. Cinematography is ok. 

The movie is melodramatic. Rather than going with realistic movie with correct amount of drama, director opts to make it melodramatic. As a result it becomes shallow rather than profound. This is Ajay’s directorial debut, so we can only expect improvement going forward. 

Actor and director promote smoking shamelessly. Smoking was not the need of this story. It was by choice. The very end is with Ajay lighting cigarette in no smoking area. Disregard for rules. It actually turns out to be counterproductive. 

This movie is a commercial dud. 

Positives: Drama

Negatives: Melodrama

Recommend watching at home. Don’t go to the  theater.