To me, a Bollywood spy film that succeeded in its execution was Baby. Bell Bottom has its moments and tries to reach the heights of that film but doesn't come anywhere near it.
Bell Bottom follows Anshul Malhotra, a RAW agent with the codename Bell Bottom, who plans a covert operation to save over 200 hostages on a plane and capture the four hijackers.
Akshay Kumar returns to the spy genre with Bell Bottom. It's hard not to compare this film with Kumar's previous ventures like Baby, Special 26 or Airlift. I'm not sure if it was the intention to feel like a Neeraj Pandey film but that's what it felt like to me. An aspect of Bell Bottom which I really didn't care about was the romance angle with Vaani Kapoor. It's something that didn't need to be included and didn't have any relevance to the main story at hand. Vaani Kapoor does a decent job but I wish she had a role that had more purpose. The motivation behind Akshay Kumar wanting to take on the mission was done in a melodramatic way which is sad as this film could've taken on a more grounded approach allowing the events to feel more suspenseful. The VFX is what really worried me and, unfortunately, they were as bad as expected. The climax is where the special effects looked laughably bad and took away from the tension that was meant to be felt. Clearly more time should've been spent on polishing the VFX. There are also a few fight sequences towards the end which looked fake in my opinion. I also noticed a few small details that ruined the film's quality in my eyes. We see a man getting stabbed in the beginning but no blood is shown on the knife, an obvious plastic baby is used rather than an actual one during one scene and you could even see a Just Eat sign in one shot which doesn't make sense considering the film was taking place in the 1980's.
The performances were good throughout. Akshay Kumar has done spy films like this in the past and does a good job. I'm amazed at how good the makeup and prosthetics are on Lara Dutta to make her look like Indira Gandhi and she's good in the film as well. Adil Hussain and Huma Qureshi also do a good job. Zain Khan Durrani was great as one of the hijackers and Denzil Smith feels like a wasted opportunity as he's not given much to do. One of the better parts of this film is the background score. Composed by Daniel B. George, the score brings that sense of adrenaline and excitement for a spy thriller like this and manages to work. The pacing is surprisingly fast and prevents the film from become a snoozefest.
Bell Bottom has elements that work well but has glaring issues that prevent the film from being as good as it could have been. There are better films like this in the past that I would rather watch, making Bell Bottom a pretty forgettable film.
Bell Bottom follows Anshul Malhotra, a RAW agent with the codename Bell Bottom, who plans a covert operation to save over 200 hostages on a plane and capture the four hijackers.
Akshay Kumar returns to the spy genre with Bell Bottom. It's hard not to compare this film with Kumar's previous ventures like Baby, Special 26 or Airlift. I'm not sure if it was the intention to feel like a Neeraj Pandey film but that's what it felt like to me. An aspect of Bell Bottom which I really didn't care about was the romance angle with Vaani Kapoor. It's something that didn't need to be included and didn't have any relevance to the main story at hand. Vaani Kapoor does a decent job but I wish she had a role that had more purpose. The motivation behind Akshay Kumar wanting to take on the mission was done in a melodramatic way which is sad as this film could've taken on a more grounded approach allowing the events to feel more suspenseful. The VFX is what really worried me and, unfortunately, they were as bad as expected. The climax is where the special effects looked laughably bad and took away from the tension that was meant to be felt. Clearly more time should've been spent on polishing the VFX. There are also a few fight sequences towards the end which looked fake in my opinion. I also noticed a few small details that ruined the film's quality in my eyes. We see a man getting stabbed in the beginning but no blood is shown on the knife, an obvious plastic baby is used rather than an actual one during one scene and you could even see a Just Eat sign in one shot which doesn't make sense considering the film was taking place in the 1980's.
The performances were good throughout. Akshay Kumar has done spy films like this in the past and does a good job. I'm amazed at how good the makeup and prosthetics are on Lara Dutta to make her look like Indira Gandhi and she's good in the film as well. Adil Hussain and Huma Qureshi also do a good job. Zain Khan Durrani was great as one of the hijackers and Denzil Smith feels like a wasted opportunity as he's not given much to do. One of the better parts of this film is the background score. Composed by Daniel B. George, the score brings that sense of adrenaline and excitement for a spy thriller like this and manages to work. The pacing is surprisingly fast and prevents the film from become a snoozefest.
Bell Bottom has elements that work well but has glaring issues that prevent the film from being as good as it could have been. There are better films like this in the past that I would rather watch, making Bell Bottom a pretty forgettable film.