Rashtra Kavach Om, a meandering action–thriller that is bafflingly devoted and indifferent to its brawny hero-figure

Kapil Verma’s directorial debut fails to engage, trying to pack in too many things - including an expected enthusiasm for the ‘Nation-comes-first’ brand of jingoism - into what could have worked better as a straightforward action-thriller. It is a strange experience to watch an actor like Aditya Roy Kapur headline a project like Rashtra Kavach Om, a film quite eager to jump on the patriotism bandwagon that has usurped our mainstream narrative in recent years. A little later, there are hints thrown around of delving into our protagonist’s childhood trauma and its repercussions - before they are abandoned in pursuit of an emotional sub-plot between an orphaned child and a forlorn mother figure, a track long enough to deviate us from the central plot, and yet ineffective in pulling the heartstrings. Om also warns us of a jingoism overdose early in its runtime, as one high-level official says to his senior, “it’s easy to lend commentary from AC rooms, it’s another thing to be a soldier on the field.” However, even though the narrative is littered later on with teary lines about patriotism and chants of ‘Jai Bhavani,’ coupled with an army man’s wife who bravely sermonizes on the lines of how the nation always comes first for a soldier, Om doesn’t end up bombarding us with its jingoism, by design or accident. At another point, one of Om’s colleagues quips, “Jaadu?” upon hearing an old Armenian woman call out to Om.