Maatrubhumi’s biggest challenge is the fog of repositioning that could alter its box office variables

That is what makes this film so fascinating from a trade point of view. Not because the subject is weak. Not because the star is not big enough. Not because patriotism has stopped working. But because a film that was once powered by absolute clarity now seems trapped in a fog of repositioning. When it was conceived as Battle Of Galwan, the idea sold itself. It had immediacy. It had a recall. It had a charged emotional memory attached to it. It had the kind of headline value that mainstream Hindi cinema rarely gets without spending crores on awareness. It…