‘Tejas’ to ‘Fighter’, Bollywood’s military movies are misfiring. Here’s why

News Snapshot:

Within the last six months alone, three Hindi movies depicting the armed forces have been released—Sam Bahadur (a biopic of Sam Manekshaw, India’s first field marshal), Tejas (starring Kangana Ranaut as wing commander Tejas Gill on a perilous mission against Islamists), and Fighter. But they all miss the mark in varying degrees. From Ranaut’s exaggerated mannerisms in Tejas to the hagiographic treatment of Manekshaw, or the laughably caricaturised Pakistani terrorist Akhtar in Fighter, Bollywood just can’t seem to get movies on the armed forces right. Despite the prevailing nationalistic sentiment sweeping across India, military action-based movies are bombing at the...