‘Ram Setu’: Review

Dir/scr: Abhishek Sharma. India. 2022. 144 mins

Amazon Prime Video’s first foray into film production in India, Ram Setu sets a disappointing new marker for the streaming platform. Far from breaking fresh ground, the Abhishek Sharma-directed co-production with Abundantia Entertainment, Cape of Good Films and Lyca Productions pliantly peddles yet another variation of the in-vogue narrative in Hindi cinema – celebrating India by invoking its glorious (specifically Hindu) mythology, culture and heritage – this time in a more pedestrian than persuasive manner. 

In its larger-than-life framing, this new age Bollywood conservatism seeks inspiration in modern Hollywood

This Diwali release sees Akshay Kumar playing Indiana Jones-style archaeologist Aryan Kulshreshtha, a man who stands by hard facts and cold logic, science and recorded history, rather than unproven beliefs and unquestioning faith. The future of a hot-button shipping canal project in the stretch of water between India and Sri Lanka (a reference to the real-life Sethusamudram project that has been temporarily shelved) depends on his research and findings. Our Brahmin hero (the caste underscored in his family name) might be an atheist to begin with, but the prodigal will return to the religious fold with the Hindu chants of endorsement—Jai Shri Ram, Om Namah Shivay and Asato maa sadgamaya—playing on in the background. 

The key issue facing Aryan is whether the titular Ram Setu is just a chain of natural limestone shoals under the sea between Rameswaram Island in Tamil Nadu, India, and Mannar Island in Sri Lanka. Or, as per hardcore Hindu belief, is it truly the bridge, mentioned in Valmiki’s epic ‘Ramayana’, that was built by Lord Rama and his army of vaanaras (monkeys) to cross and rescue his wife Sita from Ravana? In which case, shouldn’t it be protected, and the project cancelled?

While the virtuous religious groups and committed environmentalists are firmly in Team Ram Setu, the rapacious government (the year is 2007, so not the current administration) and ambitious industrialist Indrakant (Nassar) are the villains, in denial of the divinity of the hallowed structure and undermining Hinduism for personal profit. Even when Aryan questions religion, calls it a divisive force, you can still clearly see the writing on the wall.

In its larger-than-life framing, this new age Bollywood conservatism seeks inspiration in modern Hollywood. So, the action-adventures of Aryan aspire to those of Harrison Ford’s Jones; hitting upon a lost treasure, ancient scripts and a rare statue of the reclining Buddha in an expedition to Afghanistan. With his specs, long hair and grey stubble Kumar looks suitably nerdy but also channels his macho soul when called upon in dodging bullets and in fights and chase sequences. 

But just as Aryan can’t rise above being a poor cousin of Jones, a lack of imagination and ingenuity seeps through the film. The screenplay can come across as childish in its machinations, while the action and underwater sequences lack thrill; especially in the scene where Aryan is shown walking on the sea (Ram Setu under his feet) with a huge rock extricated from the structure on his shoulder. A throwback to the iconic image of Prabhas as Shivudu lifting the giant Shivlinga in Baahubali: The Beginning. 

The Hindu supremacy is underscored time and again, and disingenuously at that. Aryan is pained at the destruction of Jaffna Public Library in 1981. While on a UNESCO mission to restore the Bamiyan Buddhas, he rues its annihilation by the Taliban in 2001. But the 1992 demolition of Babri Masjid is brushed aside in a passing reference as a “land dispute”, without so much as mentioning the structure’s name. On the other hand, there’s a show of Hindu victimhood. Why should Ram Sethu not be protected when (the Mughal structures) Qutub Minar and Taj Mahal were adequately cared for during the works for the Delhi Metro and Taj Corridor projects respectively?

Elsewhere, Aryan berates the British for renaming Ram Setu ’Adam’s Bridge’ in the early 19th century, due to the belief that it was used by Adam to cross over to Sri Lanka after his expulsion from the Garden of Eden. He calls this name change an erasure of history and blames it on the “Eurocentrism of England”. Heavy duty words and phrases indeed. Such jargon, scientific and otherwise—sonar imaging, carbon dating, sedimentation, marine archeology—are strewn all over the script, as are references to events including the Civil War in Sri Lanka and the vague and arguable discovery of the date of birth of Rama by Pushkar Bhatnagar.  

This mythology is also given a gender angle, with Ram Setu pitched as a bridge that aided in the protection of a woman. The women in the film’s cast, however, are left with nothing much to do on screen. In fact, good guys or bad, women, men or children, no one else quite matters in the Akshay Kumar universe as he goes about fulfilling his primary duties as another flag bearer for an increasingly right-wing Bollywood. But even propaganda also needs to have some spark; Ram Setu is a damp squib.