Directed by- Raja Krishna Menon
Produced by- Bhushan Kumar and Nikhil Advani, Aruna Bhatia, Krishan Kumar, Monisha Adwani, Madhu G. Bhojwani, Vikram Malhotra
Written by- Raja Krishna Menon, Suresh Nair, Ritesh Shah, Rahul Nangia
Starring- Akshay Kumar, Nimrat Kaur, Feryna Wazheir
Music by- Amaal Mallik, Ankit Tiwari
Cinematography- Priya Seth
Edited by- Hemanti Sarkar
Production Company- T-Series, Hari Om Entertainment, Emmay Entertainment, Cape Of Good Films, Abundantia Entertainment
Distributed by- Prateek Entertainment
Budget- 30 crores
Release date- 22 January 2016
Story line:
The film has Akshay playing Ranjit Katyal, a wealthy and powerful Indian businessman settled in Kuwait. Being an Indian, he always saw himself as a Kuwaiti. He soon figures that his family is in danger and he no longer has any influence on the Iraqis. He then becomes the man who is looked upon by 1,70,000 Indians who were stranded in Kuwait, for safely getting them out from Kuwait.
With the help of Ranjit, these Indians manage to survive the Iraqi invasion and travelled thousand kilometres across the border into Amman, from where the largest and successful human evacuation took place in the history of the world.
In February 2015, principal photography of the film was started. The first schedule of the film was reportedly shot in Ras al-Khaimah, the United Arab Emirates in early March 2015. The sets were re-created to depict Kuwait during 1990. The second schedule of the film was shot in Rajasthan, India. Kumar and Kohli reportedly learnt the Arabic language for their roles
Know more about the captain of the Ship, the director-
Raja Krishna Menon is a versatile film director, producer and writer, who work for mainly Bollywood Cinema. He has worked on over 150 commercials and also written and directed two Hindi language feature films. He was born in Delhi, India. Raja Krishna Menon has directed different types of films and got his own Identity in Indian Film Industry. He is best known for Bas Yun Hi (2003) and Barah Aana (2009).
My Gut Feel and comments-
Promo of Airlift is quite interesting and the plot seems engaging as it’s based on a true incident where India managed to airlift around 1.7 lakh of its citizen back home from the war zone of Kuwait.
Akshay kumar looking awesome and seems have put similar sincere efforts like he did in the movie “Baby” released last year and will live up the expectations of his fans once again.
Raja Krishna Menon is a known name in AD world as he is associated with more than 150 TV commercials. He directed two movies which were off beat and have not created much buzz however with Airlift he will surely get the recognition in main stream commercial cinema this time.
Although the movie is based true incident however its evident from the promos that it’s not been captured as a documentary film, however, have been packaged and showcased as a typical bollywood masala entertainer which mass audience would able to connect.
Film releasing time is apt, just before republic day and as the budget quite moderate .i.e around 30 crores, there is a great chance film would do decent business at box office.
Written By: Rajat Narula
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