It’s 1999, and the real-life border incursion by Pakistani troops (also the subject of J.P. Karan Shergill, first seen arriving at an army outpost near Kargil, in remote northwest India. This is a star-driven blockbuster in permanent denial. But for a movie that finesses traditional Bollywood antics, there’s not much here to take their place: Roshan is much more at home in straightforward genre material and, though “Lakshya” rarely drags across its three hours, the viewer longs for the movie to bust out of its britches with a splashy musical number or “Mission Kashmir”-type heroics.

This would have worked fine if (a) Roshan were a more involving actor, and (b) if Javed Akhtar’s script had given him more to bite on. “Lakshya,” despite its sizable posted budget of 330 million rupees ($7 million), is a smaller film in terms of character, with the story centered on one protagonist, and most of the supports largely there for decoration. The story of three college friends who later drift apart earned a place in recent Bollywood history with its smooth technique, use of direct sound and, most of all, relaxed perfs. Since we had decided that ten movies should last a weekend for our readers, we did not delve more into the movies that continues to generate goosebumps each time one watches it.Akhtar, son of veteran writer Javed Akhtar and scripter Honey Irani (who made an impressive helming debut last year with “Armaan”), brought a fresh spin to formulaic material with “Dil chahta hai” (2001). Unlike other war films, this one has less of action sequences, given that in reality it was a battle of attrition between the two sides, of the kind that we witnessed more recently during the Doklam standoff in 2017 between India and China. The movie received good reviews from war veterans from that period though at the box-office it couldn't hold its own due to the lack of stars. This movie is based on a real battle between Indian and Chinese soldiers known as the Nathu La Chow La clashes near the Tibet-Sikkim border during August-September 1967.

Synopsis: Though the movie wasn't a top-grosser at the box-office, we recommend it due to the topicality involving the recent India-China skirmish along the LAC on the eastern borders. Actors: Sonu Sood, Arjun Rampal, Jackie Shroff, Luv Sinha

Lakshya 2004