This film is another showpiece from Neeraj Pandey, who brought masterpieces like A Wednesday, Special 26, and Baby, which all met with positive responses, and critical acclaim. Aiyaary is not an complete action film at all, but rather a suspenseful espionage thriller, and a damn good one at that too (for those who can appreciate).
STORY: A colonel, Abhay Singh and his protégé, Major Jai Bakshi have a lasting relationship in the Indian Army and another unit. During surveillance when Jai, however, discovers the real inside to the country's system, he goes astray, carrying a secret which could bring down the government. Abhay only has a limited amount of time to catch the rogue agent and bring him back, before it's too late...
DIRECTION/WRITING: The writing overall is ok, but at times is very clumsy. The story is good, but the writing does spoil it a bit. The film starts off quite slow with the usual Neeraj trademark - a scattered storyline, and usually with his other films everything comes to light very quickly. However with this film it takes longer than normal to make sense of what's happening, and eats up half of the first half of the film. Astonishingly it takes even longer than that to establish some of the small but important characters. Pandey takes the best of the writing and creates a gripping thriller and a rather interesting cat and mouse chase. The film keeps you gripped in your seats, and some scenes are perfectly executed for this. But Neeraj couldn't save a few clumsily written scenes, with which the film can then test your patience to some extent. A few people might find themselves completely bewildered by the whole story and incomplete arcs, and maybe give bad word-of-mouth, but the majority will be content with the running and those who can appreciate will be ones most enjoying this film.
CAST: Siddarth Malhotra is a complete natural for his role and I could not think of any other actor who could act Jai Bakshi better. Manoj Bajpayee puts the most effort into his role, and makes it look effortless. He aces this role with ease, and looks great while doing it. Rakul Preet Singh is ok but wasn't really necessary for this film. Anupam Kher and Naseeruddin Shah have minimal roles but act them very well. The casting is quite good and this film could be seen just for everyone's performances alone.
EDITING: Editing is one of this film's biggest cons. The film just has not been edited well at all. The film's length at 157 minutes could have been trimmed down a lot, especially around the start region. The film, however, is very gripping, and it goes by quickly, which is good for this.
MUSIC: There are only three songs to the album, but only one is put into the film, Lae Dooba, which is sung well by Sunidhi Chauhan. Yaad Hai and Shuru Kar fail to impress, and they picked the best out of the lot for the film. The songs do not interrupt the flowing narrative, which lets the movie go on and keeps the grip.
DIALOGUES: There are not many, but some clap-worthy dialogues worth listening to in the film.
Despite its let-downs, Aiyaary is the designated espionage thriller for Bollywood full of suspense and some action, which keeps the audience in their seat for more. Neeraj Pandey has done a great job to overcome its flaws. The film is definitely not one of the best of Neeraj's, but it is one to watch. There might be some incompleted parts, but like said earlier, "It's for the people who can appreciate."
