Say what you will about the Westernised aesthetic and goofy espionage tales of the franchise over the years, but the one thing they’ve had going for them is their old-school commentary and politics. Their commitment to cross-border humanity as a front for patriotism became a misty-eyed antidote to the more aggressive Bollywood actioners in this genre. Despite the changing surroundings, their simplicity was almost endearing, staying (relatively) true to the Yash Chopra-shaped legacy of the studio. Alpha begins in a similar vein. It opens a few days after the 1999 Kargil War. It employs the tried-and-tested franchise formula, pitting one Indian against another. The good patriot (Kapoor, as Kaul) mourns the cost of war and the price of victory, while the toxic patriot (Bobby Deol, as Colonel Fateh Singh Lakhawat) proposes a nutty supersoldier program.
This involves the injection of a serum called Alpha to make commandos invincible. But the serum isn’t foolproof, despite its name. Kaul’s newborn is pronounced dead at the same time, and the stage is set for a banished Fateh to take his illegal lab-rat program to remote Rajasthan. Who funds him? The question is asked repeatedly, and the answer is an unfortunate twist. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Fateh’s human guinea pig is a cold girl-with-no-childhood trope named Sita. Join the dots. Her pet is a literal guinea pig (a strange exposition device), just like alpha is a literal serum and not a metaphorical one. When Sita makes an entry as an adult (Alia Bhatt), she’s cool, ruthless and, for reasons that will be spoon-fed to us later, determined to destroy her abusive mentor. Her paths will cross with R&AW chief Kaul and his NRI daughter, Durga, who spent her years sporty-spicing up in Spain before returning to her dad’s backyard.
