French New Wave filmmaker François Truffaut once said, “There’s no such thing as an anti-war film.” It’s like he had a glimpse into the future and watched Uri: The Surgical Strike in a packed theatre at PVR Juhu. His point was that the very act of showing war on screen risks glorifying it. And while he wasn’t entirely wrong, he wasn’t completely right either. Many powerful anti-war films exist. We’ll get into a few of them later. But what about Indian cinema?
Take Ground Zero for instance, a recent release on Prime Video after a theatrical run that got overshadowed by the Pahalgam terror attack. The film seems aware of the tricky balance between storytelling and responsibility. But when it really matters, it drops the ball.
The story centers around a BSF officer named Narendra Dubey, played by Emraan Hashmi, who’s on a mission to capture Ghazi Baba, the mastermind behind the 2001 Parliament attacks. Baba had ties to Masood Azhar, who was infamously freed during the IC-814 hijacking. To its credit, Ground Zero avoids painting all Kashmiris with the same brush. It doesn’t call every Kashmiri Muslim a terrorist, but it does portray many of them as helpless victims. And where there are victims, there has to be a savior in this case, Dubey, who seems to understand that the heavy military presence has deeply alienated locals.
Directed by Tejas Prabha Vijay Deoskar, the film doesn’t dive into the darker, more painful aspects of the conflict, there’s no real depiction of army abuse, enforced disappearances, or the grief of the “half-widows” left behind. But in today’s climate, even a mildly thoughtful Hindi film feels like a rare show of empathy. A movie like Shershaah might’ve had the chance to say something deeper about the futility of war but because it celebrates Captain Vikram Batra’s sacrifice in the context of national victory, it ends up glorifying war instead.
Shershaah and Uri are not anti-war movies. Ground Zero could’ve been, but it skirts around some crucial truths. Contrast that with Warfare, a recent American film by Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza. Based on Mendoza’s real-life military experience, it manages to tell a personal story while also critiquing U.S. foreign policy. The final scene with Iraqi fighters walking out of bombed homes, dazed but defiant, after pushing back American troops lingers in your mind. The message is clear: what was the point of all this destruction?
Ground Zero doesn’t reach that level. It shows Kashmir not as a place to be dominated, but to be won over with kindness, courage, and compassion. But for a film so visually drained of color, it has a surprisingly rosy view of reality. In one scene, a soldier tells Dubey, “Say what you will, Kashmir is ours.” Dubey replies, “Do you mean just the land or the people too?” The movie understands this nuance and introduces Hussain, a local boy manipulated into committing acts of violence for a small payout.
Instead of really exploring why a kid like Hussain would be pushed toward extremism, the film uses him as a plot device. Dubey tries to “rescue” him by turning him into an informant, a morally grey move that the film doesn’t really question, because Dubey is portrayed as morally pure. Unsurprisingly, Hussain dies, and Dubey is left carrying the emotional burden, which only strengthens his resolve to hunt down Ghazi Baba.
Ground Zero is Emraan Hashmi’s second recent film to lean into empathy at a time when many mainstream movies are loud and nationalistic. That’s worth acknowledging. In Tiger 3, he even played the villain opposite a hero who talks about Pakistanis as extended family. Still, Ground Zero features a song that literally says, “Let more blood be spilled,” and ends in a violent action scene with lots of casualties. Whether or not this is based on real events, the film never really pauses to ask, was it worth it? Were hearts and minds actually changed? Who knows. But hey, at least one Narendra is trying.
